August 27 , 2000

Printing Page Thumbnails on One Sheet

Have you ever created a bunch of pages in a FreeHand document, and wanted to print thumbnails of them on one page? How about creating a flow chart of a web site using multiple pages, but wanted to print it out as one page instead of multiple? If you answered yes, then this tip is for you.

Version: 7 and above

 
 


Tip idea provided by: Judy Arndt
Content written by Ian Kelleigh

Above is a series of pages, each containing a logo idea to present to the client. Often times, it's useful to print out thumbnails that shows all of these logos one page.

While you could easily copy and paste all of these onto one page, I'll show you how to do the same thing... all from the Print dialog in FreeHand.

The first step, is to arrange your pages in a way that you wish to see printed. I've arranged mine above to look nice and tidy. This is easily done in FreeHand 9 with the Page Tool.

 

Next, zoom out so you can see all of your pages. Then click or activate the top-right page. You should see the rulers change to zero out on that page.

Then grab the Page Origin guide from the top-left of the document window. Drag this down and place it just left of the bottom-left page like shown above. OK, now you're set. On to the Print dialog.

 

In the Print dialog (Mac shown), first choose to print the page you set the Page Origin from. In this example it would be page 2.

 

Now in the FreeHand section of the Print dialog, you need to make a couple of changes. First, set the Scale to Uniform and pick a lower number such as 25-30.

Then turn on the Tile option and choose Manual.

 

Next go into the Setup options. You should see all the artwork on your pages show up on one page like shown above. FreeHand sets the manual tile from the bottom-left to the top-right of where ever you put that Page origin guide. Since you applied this to the top-right page, it will show everything within that area (as long as you set a small enough reduction).

In these options, you can choose a different page size or orientation if the objects aren't falling on the page like you want.

If your objects look too small or large, go back and adjust the Scale setting again.

Now when you print, all of your pages will be printed in thumbnail fashion.


Other Variations

Now what if you want to see the page borders around the art in the printed thumbnails. Well that's pretty easy too.

 

Create a new Layer below all of your other layers, call this "Page outlines."

On this layer, create a rectangle that fits exactly to the page size. You can fill this if you need to show page colors if you prefer.

 

Now duplicate this rectangle for all of your other pages.

 

When you preview this in the Print dialog, you can see that the page outlines show up. Adjust this according your needs.

 

Another option you may need is to add flow lines between pages. This could be to show the process of your designs, or even setting up a mockup for a web site.

Just create a new layer and add some lines (with arrows if preferred) like shown above.

 

Then going through the same process as before, you will have a nice flow chart printout with all of your thumbnail pages.

 

Version Addendum

In FreeHand 10, you can now use the Print Area command found under the File menu. Just follow some of the techniques mentioned above for creating page outlines etc. Then use the Print Area command to drag around the pages you want to print on one page.

Much easier.

If you have any other tricks using the Page origin guide or using the Print Dialog, please let me know. Enjoy!