Add crop marks to 2x2 cards on A4

Question

I use miktex to join a bunch of cards into A4 landscape pages, 2x2 per page. I was looking into how to add crop lines to it: - 1 horizontal + 1 vertical lines - both in the middle of the page, going through the whole page

The code for now is so (it grabs the pdf with A6 pages and "nup"s it into A4 pages):

% \batchmode 
\documentclass{book}

\usepackage{grffile}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\usepackage[a4paper,landscape]{geometry}
\usepackage[numbered]{bookmark}

\begin{document}
\bookmark[page=1,level=0]{Parts A6 cards to cut}

% distributes all cards in A4 landscape pages, 2x2
\includepdf[pages={1-4},scale=0.97,nup=2x2,delta=8mm 11mm]{collect-cards.pdf}
\end{document}

I tried the crop package, but couldn't find the correct settings. I also had a look at Also, adding "frame" to pdfpages doesn't work, the cards aren't exactly in a6.

Does anyone have a good solution to this?

Best,

jmmmp

Answer 1

You can use picturecommand from pdfpages to draw whatever lines you need:

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{grffile}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\usepackage{picture}
\usepackage[a4paper,landscape]{geometry}
\usepackage[numbered]{bookmark}

\begin{document}
\bookmark[page=1,level=0]{Parts A6 cards to cut}

% distributes all cards in A4 landscape pages, 2x2
\includepdf[pages={1-4},
    scale=0.97,nup=2x2,delta=8mm 11mm,
    picturecommand={%
    \put(0,.5\paperheight){\line(1,0){\paperwidth}}%
    \put(.5\paperwidth,0){\line(0,1){\paperheight}}%
  },
    ]{cards.pdf}
\end{document}