townx

This document covers how to squeeze a PDF onto half the paper, by putting two pages of the original document onto one page of the output document. You can save more paper by printing double-sided, if your printer supports it.

I did this on Ubuntu Hoary. You will need the following to use this howto:

• pdfjam package: this is part of the Universe, and not in the core of Ubuntu
• xpdf package

Here are the steps to convert our hypothetical mydoc.pdf file into a new half-page-count PDF and print it intelligibly with xpdf.

1. Process the PDF through pdfnup like this:
   
   pdfnup --orient landscape --nup 2x1 --outfile mydoc_new.pdf --paper a4paper mydoc.pdf
   
   NB this assumes the original document was portrait oriented, and shifts the orientation to landscape to maximise the font size in the new PDF version.
2. Open mydoc_new.pdf in xpdf.
3. To print it, click on the print button in xpdf and print it with this lpr command line:
   
   lpr -o sides=two-sided-short-edge