The standard Mac Print - Layout - Pages per Sheet drop down offers 1,2,4,6,9 & 16 pages per sheet. Why is there no 8 pages per sheet option? This seems a bizarre omission. In a world of ISO 'A' paper sizes, it is easy to scale any binary power number of sheets onto, say, A4 for printing. 1,2,4 and 16 are offered - what has Apple got against 8? Does anyone know if/how I might add 8 as an option?
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.2)
It is a desined limitation of CUPS the printing sytem in OS X. See the documentation on your computer at http://127.0.0.1:631/help/options.html#NUMBERUP
N-Up Printing
The
-o number-up=valuelp -o number-up=1 filename
lp -o number-up=2 filename
lp -o number-up=4 filename
lpr -o number-up=16 filename
If you find this too limiting, you can give your feedback to Apple at http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html
Message was edited by: Matt Broughton
Yes, Apple owns CUPS now. They did not own CUPS when it was first introduced to OS X in 10.2. Unfortunately, all I could do is point you to documention that says things are working as designed. I cannot shed light on why it was designed as it was. I think if you look at how pages are arranged when you choose various layout numbers, three would probably work. However, if you include 3 up then you also have to include 5 up, 7 up, and every number. It was and is most likely a practical limitation.
I second to this. Apple is simply ignoring world of ISO standards. While I really have no use for 6 or 9 pps, I miss 8 pps very much. I resorted to opening print preview with 4 pages per sheet and then printing this preview with 2 pps layout. Every windows printer driver does this with 3 mouse button clicks.
Thanks - that sheds some light on it. Though CUPS is Apple's baby, so I think my original point still stands. I'll post feedback.
Why no 8 pages per sheet option?
