Printing a pdf file but enlarge it first
 

Hi,
I downloaded a pdf file (sorry can't give a link, it's gone 404 due to the use of a URL shortener), and I want to print it so that each page is cut in half and rotated to landscape and then printed.
The reason for this is because it is a manual for assembling something and it's much easier to build something if you can use a paper assembly guide (the pdf file prints *way* too small even if it did cover the whole page).

I can do this in gimp, but it takes a *long* time for 18 pages.
So I'd like to know if there is a way to do this that is batch?
maybe something involving a conversion to images and then imagemagick, but then how to tell the CUPS driver the size to place the image on a page?
I'm just not familiar enough with printing in Linux.

Isn't there a way to do this without modifying the pdf file first? I mean, can't you tell the printer to print it landscape on a larger paper than A4. Normally when you do Print, you have Print Options which involve these settings. What distro do you have and what pdf reader are you using?

I'm running an up to date Gentoo linux using gv (ghostview) as my pdf viewer. Yes, I know, it's dumb, it's stupid, it works and I love it!
As for printing in a different size, well I use lp or lpr and when you print bigger the print just goes off the page.
I'm using an HP 832C printer.
As for printing larger, well, unless I've missed some cool CMD line option the answer is no.
Thanks again.

Ok then. :-) No, it's not dumb. gv is quite simple and as you said, it works. I sometimes use it, especially for ps and eps files.

I think we need some more information here. What is the size/orientation of the pages in the original pdf and what is the final size/orientation that you wish to obtain?

Hey, you can upload the pdf here I think. It will surely help us understand exactly what you need.

Isn't there two types of pdf files basically. One that has basically been a photo copy of a document that is turned into a pdf while the other has the ability to manipulate text and images on pages.

Since you say gimp, I get the feeling this isn't a text type document.


If it were a text type, I'd import it to a pdf program or office type and manipulate the page sizes and orientation and text sizes.

Have you tried ghostscript? There are a lot of utilities in that package, but I'm not going to look through them all to help you... do some Googling!

I've found gimp a bit slow on the first page. But after that it seems ok.

I use evince for pdfs and that has endless options for printing, including scaling and paper selection. Ther are reasons why people use things like evince rather than gv!