Printing a handout of a Beamer presentation, the resulting pdf is shrunk!

Question

I use the code below to produce handouts of my presentations.

When I open the resulting pdf with any pdf viewer, it is viewed correctly, but when I print it, it is always printed very small, no matter the program I use (Okular, Evince, Acrobat...). Bonus to anyone that can make the pdf be printed correctly by Okular under Ubuntu! Thanks!

MWE here:

\documentclass[handout]{beamer}
\usepackage{pgfpages}
\pgfpagesuselayout{2 on 1}[a4paper,border shrink=5mm]
\setbeameroption{show notes on second screen=bottom}

\setbeamercolor{background canvas}{bg=pink}

\mode<presentation> {
    \usetheme{Singapore}
}
\begin{document}


\begin{frame}[plain]
    \titlepage  
\note{
    Notes for the title page
}
\end{frame}


\section*{Outline}
\begin{frame}[plain]
\frametitle{Outline}
    \tableofcontents

\note{
    Notes for the table of contents
}
\end{frame}

EDIT:

If I place the line "\pgfpagesuselayout{2 on 1}" after the line "\setbeameroption{show notes}" I do not experience the printing problem anymore!! However, the slide preview and notes that appear at the bottom belong to the NEXT SLIDE, instead of to the CURRENT SLIDE!! What is going on with that?

Answer 1

This has nothing to do with TeX, just with your printing properties. The document generated by your above MWE has a size of 128 mm \times 192 mm, so it is much smaller then Din A4. If you print it without scaling you will end up with a small image in the centre of the paper:

If you let your printer do its job and either scale it (e.g. 140% seems to be a good start) or fit to paper, you will get the whole page filled:

---

Or, instead of fiddling around with the printer options, compile the pdf directly to a Din A4 version, i.e. not interfering with the pgf resizing by omitting on second screen:

\documentclass[handout]{beamer}
\usepackage{pgfpages}
\pgfpagesuselayout{2 on 1}[landscape,a4paper,border shrink=5mm]
\setbeameroption{show notes}


\setbeamercolor{background canvas}{bg=pink}

\mode<presentation> {
    \usetheme{Singapore}
}
\begin{document}


\begin{frame}[plain]
    \titlepage  
\note{
    Notes for the title page
}
\end{frame}


\section*{Outline}
\begin{frame}[plain]
\frametitle{Outline}
    \tableofcontents

\note{
    Notes for the table of contents
}
\end{frame}


\section{Frame 1}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Frame with notes 1}
    FIRST FRAME CONTENTS

\note{
    Notes for the first frame
}
\end{frame}


\section{Frame 2}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Frame with notes 2}
    SECOND FRAME CONTENTS
\note{
    Notes for the second frame
}
\end{frame}


\section{Frame 3}
\begin{frame}
    \frametitle{Frame with notes 3}
    SECOND FRAME CONTENTS
    \note{
        Notes for the third frame
    }
\end{frame}


\end{document}

Answer 2

The following solution is really ugly and I hope someone finds a nicer one. I set the papersize explicitly to A4 (the height is half of it, because it consists of two slides):

\documentclass[handout, xcolor={dvipsnames,table}]{beamer}
\usepackage{pgfpages}

% A4 Paper Size and some small additional margin
\paperheight=143.5mm %297mm / 2 - 5mm
\paperwidth=205mm % 210mm -5mm

% border shrink and a4paper doesn't seem to work like I wanted it to..
\pgfpagesuselayout{resize to}[a4paper,border shrink=5mm] % could also use letterpaper
\setbeameroption{show notes on second screen=bottom} % Beamer manual, section 19.3
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\setbeamercolor{background canvas}{bg=pink}

\setbeamertemplate{note page}[plain] % Beamer manual, section 19.1
\newlength{\parskipbackup}
\setlength{\parskipbackup}{\parskip}
\newlength{\parindentbackup}
\setlength{\parindentbackup}{\parindent}
\newcommand{\baselinestretchbackup}{\baselinestretch}

\usetemplatenote{

  \insertslideintonotes{0.3}%

  \rmfamily \scriptsize%
  \setlength{\parindent}{1em} \setlength{\parskip}{1ex}%
  \renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1}%

  \insertnote%

  \setlength{\parskip}{\parskipbackup}%
  \setlength{\parindent}{\parindentbackup}%
  \renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{\baselinestretchbackup}%
}
\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
Title slide
\note{this is a note}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
This is the first slide
\note{this is another note}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

To change the borders just shrink the papersizes.