FAQ:

How to print large format postcript files on A4 printers?

Answer:

Goal: Create a A1 poster with TeX and print it as 8 A4 pages on our NatS printer

1. Write the poster in TeX. There is a poster style for TeX which probably makes things easier, but I just wrote it like this:

   \documentstyle[german]{report}
   \special{papersize=84cm,60cm}
   \special{landscape}
   \hsize 84cm
   \vsize 60cm 
   \textheight=57cm
   \textwidth=80cm
   \hoffset=-4.0truecm
   \voffset=-3.7truecm
   \newfont{\univ}{cmss17 scaled 6900}
   \newfont{\forty}{cmr7 scaled 9800}
   
   \begin{document}
   \forty
   \begin{tabular}{llll}
   \multicolumn{4}{c}{\univ Universit"at Hamburg}\\[5ex]
   ...
   ...[more text here]
   ...
   \end{tabular}
   \end{document}
   

2. Compile the TeX file and converted the .dvi file to a postscript file using

   dvips -T 84cm,60cm -o FileName.ps FileName.dvi
   
   

3. I then used a C program to break down the A1 poster into A4 pieces. Supposedly this can also be done with pstops, but this program is quite comfortable and prints nice markers for cutting off the paper. I don't know if there are any copyrights on poster.c, but it was sent to me by Joost Gevers j.j.a.gevers@stud.tue.nl who apparently authored (or co-authored) it. Compile it using something like

   cc -O -o poster poster.c -lm
   

4. Call the program

   poster -v -iA1 -mA4 -pA1 -o SplitFileName.ps FileName.ps
   

   v=verbose, i=input paper size, p=media paper size, p=output paper size.
   You could probably blow up A4 to A1 and break it down into A4 pieces by using the -iA4 option.
5. Now you can access the different pages with psselect:

   psselect -p1 SplitFilename.ps Page1.ps
   

   will give you the first page, and so on.
6. Print the pages

(by KaiSiemonsen)

Update

If you are using KDE then you probably don't need to follow steps 3-6 using kprinter which lets you split up and posterize files that are bigger than the target page size of the printer.

Back to: PrintingFAQ

-- MichaelDaum -- 09 Sep 2003