How to print an A6 Booklet (Double Sided) on A4 paper?

[NP2015]

Hi All, 

My friend recently asked this question: how to print an A6 booklet when he only has A4 paper. I did not know how. We then worked on this together and succesfully made an A6 booklet on our HP Officejet Pro 8720. 

So just sharing this in case some of you need to print A6 booklet as well. 

The input would be the A4 paper while the output would be two sets of A6 booklet of printing. You will need to cut the A4 paper into two after you have finished printing. 

Let's begin with an example of a 12-page A6 booklet. To do that in HP Officejet Pro, you can enable the two-sided option and then enter this when printing. I have just learned that it is possible to enter the same page number more than once. So you can key in the following when printing each of the 3 sheets you need:

Sheet 1:
12, 1, 12, 1, 2, 11, 2, 11

Sheet 2:
10, 3, 10, 3, 4, 9, 4, 9

Sheet 3:
8, 5, 8, 5, 6, 7, 6, 7

Note that I printed one sheet (two-sided) at a time. I have not tried whether you can do all sheets together. In addition, if you use manual duplex, you may need to break it down: side 1 first and then side 2. 

Here are the detailed formula to make "n" pages A6 booklet with "n/4" sheets of A4 (4 pages per sheet, two-sided). You may want to use excel so that it is easier to compute

.

Sheet 1:
Side 1: n, 1, n, 1,
Side 2: 2, (n-1), 2, (n-1)

Sheet i>1, i<n:
Side 1: (n-2i+2), (2i-1), (n-2i+2), (2i-1),
Side 2: (2i), (n-2i+1), (2i), (n-2i+1),

Last sheet (i= (n/4)):
Side 1: (n/2+2), (n/2-1), (n/2+2), (2i-1),
Side 2: (n/2), (n/2+1), (n/2), (n/2+1)

Please let me know if there are things that are not clear or if you have any problem in printing your A6 booklet. Happy printing :)!

Best regards,
Nugi

* Although I am employed by HP, I am speaking for myself and not for HP.

[Bob_Headrick]

Thanks for the tip.  It seems this should apply to booklets printed in half folded Letter size as well.

[NP2015]

Hi Bob,

Thank you for your comment.

Yes. But for A5 or half-folded letter booklet, we do not need to go through the hassle above. The driver will do the job for us when we switch on the booklet printing option.

There is probably no auto option for A6 booklet printing (booklet printing when the paper size is A5) because a normal A5 paper cannot go through auto duplex as the paper length may not be long enough for the printer to be able to retract back the paper automatically for the second side printing.

Best regards,
Nugi

* Although I am employed by HP, I am speaking for myself and not for HP.