- What does "n-up" mean in printing?
- "N-up" (also written as "nup" or "n up") refers to printing N pages of a document on a single sheet of paper. 2-up places two pages side by side, 4-up arranges four pages in a 2×2 grid, and so on. It is used to save paper, create booklets, and produce business cards or postcards in multi-up imposition layouts for commercial press runs.
- Will the PDF quality degrade?
- No. Unlike tools that rasterise (convert to an image) before placing, this tool embeds your pages as PDF form XObjects using pdf-lib. Vectors, text, and embedded fonts remain fully sharp at any zoom level. The only size change is geometric scaling — the underlying PDF data is not re-compressed.
- What are trim marks and when do I need them?
- Trim marks (also called crop marks) are thin lines printed just outside the page boundary to show where a cutter should slice. You need them when sending your file to a commercial print shop. For simple home printing or digital distribution, you can leave them off. Add bleed (usually 3 mm) alongside trim marks so colour or artwork extends to the cut line with no white gap.
- Which sheet size should I choose for business cards?
- Standard business cards are 3.5 × 2 in (US) or 90 × 55 mm (Europe). For US cards, use Letter or Tabloid sheet size and choose 8-up or 10-up layouts. For European cards, use A4 or A3. Always add 3 mm bleed and enable trim marks when sending to a print shop so cards have clean cut edges.
- Can I use a custom grid — for example 2 rows × 5 columns?
- Yes. Click the "Custom" preset and enter any row and column count from 1 to 8. The tool calculates the available cell size automatically based on sheet dimensions, margins, and gaps. Very large grids (e.g. 8×8) will produce tiny cells; check your source page content is legible at that scale before printing.
- Does this work on mobile?
- Yes, the tool works in any modern browser including Safari on iPhone and iPad. For very large PDFs (many pages or high-resolution images), a desktop browser with more RAM will be faster. The output PDF is generated in memory and downloaded when ready.