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Printing mini books can be a hassle, especially when it comes to the printer setting. There so many options and as teachers, we have a limited number of pages to print. Trial and error is not option.
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I recently bought some ebooks to print for my niece and nephews to read over the summer, but with no laptops or reading devices, printing was the next option.
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I scowered the internet for a guide or tutorial on printing ebooks from PDFs, but alas, I came up short. After about an hour (and many sheets of paper later), I finally figured it out on my own. Here’s how to do it.
Open your ebook!
Open your eBook PDF you wish to print. For me, I purchased leveled eBooks from scholastic for 0.99 each. Look through all your pages and choose what pages you want to print. Some documents have covers and title pages. With the scholastic books, I printed everything. Click the “Print” icon or go to File>>Print.
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Printing the Inside of the Book
Under Page Sizing and Handling, there are options (Size, Poster, Multiple, and Boklet). Click on “Multiple”. Set your pages per sheet to Custom where you’ll set the numbers of pages to be 2 by 2. (This will print 4 pages of your book on 1 page.)
Page order should be set to Horizontal Reversed.
Set the “Orientation” to landscape.
If you printer can print on both sides, check “Print on both sides of Paper“.
Very important! Make sure to choose “Flip on short edge“. This is important as this is what flips the images on the opposite side of the page.
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Under Pages to Print, choose the pages you wish to print. There was a very specific order the pages need to be in. Scholastic mini books have 10 pages including a cover, copyright right page, title page, and reading pages.0
First, let’s do the reading pages. For the mini books I did, I used all the pages but the cover and copyright page. You have 3 options to print: all (or all the pages), current (or the page you viewed before clicking print), and pages (or a specific pages in any order). Choose “Pages” and use this sequences. Use commas between numbers.
Printer with Print BOTH SIDES:
4, 7, 2, 9, 6, 5, 8, 3
This will print all your pages on 1 sheet of paper, front AND back.
Printer with PRINT ONE SIDE:
This incurs a little work. 4, 7, 2, 9. Print. Reinsert the page, flipping it to print on the black page. 6, 5, 8, 3
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Printing the Cover
To make the cover, the settings will be the same. For the sequence, you’ll use the following sequence:
Cover, 1, Cover, 1
The word cover is CASE SENSITIVE so make sure you spell it right, capitols and all. With this, you’ll be able to print 2 covers for 2 books. For my cover, I used photo paper from the Dollar Tree. Very nice, but cardstock works just fine too. You can just print one cover, but why waste the paper???
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Putting the Book Together
Once printed, cut, fold, and arrange the papers accordingly. There will some white around the covers. I chose to trim it down some so it looks more like a book. Use a stapler to bind the book together. If you don’t have a long reaching stapler but have staples, use a push pin or sewing needle to make holes in the crease and add the staple yourself. Just be careful not to poke yourself. I’ve done that a few times.
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Rinse, Wash, Repeat!
The good thing about printing is that if you have multiple pdf of the same kind, the setting will stay the same, saving time. All you’ll have to change is the printing order if you have more pages. These books are great for K- 2 students. Check out my blog post for creating DIY reading helpers and bagbooks.
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