# How to create 4-up pdfs [without pdfnup, pdfpages]?

I use a standard KOMA-script class for creating slides [slides.tex]. I am wondering if there is a LaTeX package with an option to specify how the output looks like. I would like to create a 4-up .pdf version of slides.tex in landscape mode. I know that one could use pdfpages, but that would rather require to use a second .tex file containing the pdfpages instructions. I am wondering whether one can omit this additional step and directly tell slides.tex that the .pdf should be 4-up and landscape (?)

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You can use the pgfpages package (not pdfpages) (it's part of TikZ/pgf and documented in section 58 of the TikZ manual) to do this:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{kantlipsum}
\usepackage{pgfpages}
\pgfpagesuselayout{4 on 1}[a4paper, landscape]
\begin{document}
\kant[1-13]
\end{document}


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Precisely what I was looking for, many thanks Alan! –  Marius Hofert Apr 26 '13 at 22:22
One has to say, though, that it does not preserve hyperlinks (this is also mentioned in the manual). I haven't seen any solution which can provide this (the unix tool ghostscript can preserve them for extracting pages, but afaik it can't be used to do 4-ups). Another solution on the unix side (also not preserving hyperlinks but still quite flexible) is to use pdfjam: pdfjam --fitpaper true --nup 2x2 --delta '1mm 1mm' --scale 0.98 foo.pdf could be used. The resulting pdf is only slightly larger. –  Marius Hofert Apr 27 '13 at 8:12