Using crop and creating duplicate a5 pages on one a4

Question

I often create programmes for events, and I've just been reading about the crop package, and was wondering, is there any way to create two identical pages from one source, and then to have the crop lines surround them?

What I have so far:

\documentclass[landscape]{article}
\usepackage[margin=1cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{blindtext}

\newcommand{\dual}[1]{\begin{minipage}[c][\textheight][c]{0.45\linewidth}\centering #1\end{minipage}\hspace{0.05\linewidth}\begin{minipage}[c][\textheight][c]{0.45\linewidth}\centering #1\end{minipage}}
\begin{document}

\dual{
\blindtext[2]
}

\end{document}

The ideal would be for each programme (the minipages defined in dual in this case) to have crop marks to make it easy to guillotine the separate programmes, without the need to compile a separate file (e.g. to have to use pdfpages).

Feasible, but using the guillotine always ends up with lines on the final product (I'm not that great at using it); using crop allows for lines that don't touch the page. — Nathanael Farley, Jan 03 '13 at 18:21

Uwe Ziegenhagen · Answer 1 · 2013-01-03T18:21:01.173

To create the two parallel pages from one source I recommend the pgfpages package. The idea behind this package is to differentiate between the one physical page and the two logical pages.

This package is also really helpful if one wants to create a Pocketmod, as it allow also to rotate logical pages, see http://uweziegenhagen.de/?p=1294

To see some more cropmarks decrease the values for resized width and resized height in the the logical page section, the settings below draw frames around each logical page.

\documentclass[12pt,english]{scrartcl}
\usepackage{forloop}
\usepackage{blindtext}
\usepackage{babel}
\newcounter{ct} 
\usepackage{pgfpages}

  \edef\pgfpageoptionheight{\the\paperwidth} % landscaped by default
  \edef\pgfpageoptionwidth{\the\paperheight}
  \def\pgfpageoptionborder{0pt}
  \def\pgfpageoptionfirstshipout{1}

\pgfpagesphysicalpageoptions{%
    logical pages=2,%
    physical height=\pgfpageoptionheight,%
    physical width=\pgfpageoptionwidth,%
    current logical shipout=\pgfpageoptionfirstshipout%
}

\pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{1}{%
      border shrink=\pgfpageoptionborder,%
      resized width=0.5\pgfphysicalwidth,%
      border code=\pgfusepath{stroke},%
      resized height=1\pgfphysicalheight,%
      center=\pgfpoint{.25\pgfphysicalwidth}{.5\pgfphysicalheight}%
}%
\pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{2}
    {%
      border shrink=\pgfpageoptionborder,%
      resized width=0.5\pgfphysicalwidth,%
      border code=\pgfusepath{stroke},%
      resized height=1.0\pgfphysicalheight,%
      center=\pgfpoint{0.75\pgfphysicalwidth}{.5\pgfphysicalheight}%
    }%

\begin{document}

\forloop{ct}{1}{\value{ct} < 3}{%
\blindtext%
\clearpage}%
\end{document}

pgfpages

Thanks, but method doesn't really create anything different from my current setup, but using an fbox around the minipages. I'm really after the crop marks produced by crop. I'll try and include a picture of what I'm after in my post. Nice way do duplicate content though! — Nathanael Farley, Jan 05 '13 at 09:32

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

Using some of Uwe Ziegenhagen's answer, I was able to find the zwpagelayout package, which achieves cropmarks without clashing with pgfpages.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{nopageno} %loaded before zwpagelayout to avoid conflict
\usepackage{forloop}
\usepackage[cropmarks,a6,margins=1cm]{zwpagelayout}
\usepackage{blindtext}
\newcounter{ct} 

\usepackage{pgfpages}
\pgfpagesuselayout{2 on 1}[a4paper,landscape,border shrink=5mm]


\begin{document}

\forloop{ct}{1}{\value{ct} < 3}{%
\begin{minipage}[c][\textheight]{\linewidth}\blindtext%
\end{minipage}\clearpage
}%
\end{document}

preview of crop marks with pgfpages

Although it's not exactly the same as crop, the marks don't touch the page, so it will do well.

Using crop and creating duplicate a5 pages on one a4

2 Answers2