PDF N-down for Tiled Page Exports
Cutting one large PDF page into equal smaller pages
Divide one PDF page into multiple smaller page sections and download the output in a ZIP. Choose the number of pieces and the source pages to work with an oversized layout on smaller sheets. This reverses the idea of N-up, which places multiple pages on one sheet. Inspect the tile order and print scaling before assembling the result.
Cost: Free to use. File size and usage limits apply.
How to split PDF pages into tiles
Add your PDF
Drop a PDF onto the preview area or click Choose PDF. One file of up to 200 MB is processed per job; PDFs from other tools are listed under Uploads.
Choose the number of tiles
Pick a value under Tiles per page:
2,3,4,8,9,12or16. It starts at2, which cuts every page into two halves.Add a margin if you plan to print
Enter a value in Margin (pt) to put a white border around every tile, or leave it empty for tiles that meet edge to edge.
Limit the pages if needed
Type pages such as
1-3,5into Pages (optional). Leave it empty to split every page of the document.Create and download
Click Create N-down tiles, then Download tiles ZIP when the job has finished. The ZIP is also saved in the shared file manager.
Settings explained
- Tiles per page
- How many equal pieces each page is cut into.
2and3cut strips,4,9and16form grids of 2 × 2, 3 × 3 and 4 × 4,8is 2 × 4 and12is 3 × 4. The larger count always runs along the longer edge, so2cuts a portrait page into top and bottom halves and a landscape page into left and right halves. - Margin (pt)
- Starts empty, with no border. Enter a value of 0 pt or more; the number control changes in steps of 0.5 pt, so
12.5is a valid example. There is no fixed maximum. The white border is sized according to the value in points (72 pt = 1 inch, about 28 pt = 1 cm). Tiles keep their size while the content shrinks to make room: with20and 4 tiles on an A4 page, it shrinks to about 87 %. A larger margin leaves less room for the drawing. - Pages (optional)
- Empty means every page. Separate single pages and ranges with commas, for example
2,4or1-3,5. Ranges must run from low to high; open ranges such as5-and pages beyond the end of the document are rejected. Pages you don't list are left out of the ZIP.
Tile sizes on an A4 page
Grid and tile size for a portrait A4 page of 595 × 842 pt (210 × 297 mm). On a landscape page, columns and rows swap.
- 2 tiles
- 1 column × 2 rows, 595 × 421 pt each (A5 landscape)
- 3 tiles
- 1 column × 3 rows, 595 × 281 pt each
- 4 tiles
- 2 columns × 2 rows, 297.5 × 421 pt each (A6)
- 8 tiles
- 2 columns × 4 rows, 297.5 × 210.5 pt each (A7 landscape)
- 9 tiles
- 3 columns × 3 rows, 198 × 281 pt each
- 12 tiles
- 3 columns × 4 rows, 198 × 210.5 pt each
- 16 tiles
- 4 columns × 4 rows, 149 × 210.5 pt each (A8)
What the ZIP contains
You always get a ZIP, even for a single page. It holds one PDF per selected page, numbered by the page it came from. Each of these PDFs starts with an overview page: the whole source page at its original size, with red dashed lines where it is cut. The tiles follow row by row from the top left, so with 4 tiles every file has 5 pages.
Pages are split the way they appear on screen, so a page stored with a 90° rotation is treated as the landscape page you see. The tiles contain page content; interactive annotations, including comments and form fields, are not retained. Title and author metadata of the source file are not carried over.
Example: printing an A2 plan on A4 paper
An A2 page measures 420 × 594 mm (1191 × 1684 pt). With Tiles per page set to 4, each tile is 595.5 × 842 pt, which is A4 portrait. The A series halves cleanly: the same A2 page gives two A3 tiles with 2, eight A5 tiles with 8 and sixteen A6 tiles with 16.
Print the tiles at 100 % or actual size. Fit-to-page printing can shrink each tile again, changing the assembled scale. If you need a plan at its original scale, leave Margin (pt) empty and use a printer that can print the tile content without clipping it.
Check your printer's printable area before choosing a margin. A white border gives you space for trimming and joining, but also reduces the drawing's scale. Print one tile first to check the result, then trim the borders along the joins and use the overview page as your assembly map.
If your paper size doesn't divide the page evenly, such as an A2 poster on US Letter, use PDF Poster, which tiles by target paper size and scale.
Formats and limits
- Input format
- Output format
- ZIP with one PDF per selected page (overview page plus tiles)
- Maximum file size
- 200 MB
- Files per job
- 1
- Password-protected PDFs
- Files that need a password to open must be unlocked first with Unlock PDF.
- Processing
- On our servers with pdfcpu. A single job can run for up to 15 minutes.
- Watermark
- None
- Storage
- Uploads and results are deleted automatically after 48 hours for guests and after 30 days for free accounts. Paid plans can keep files longer.
Frequently asked questions
Why does each PDF have one page more than the number of tiles?
The first page is the overview: the complete source page with the cut lines marked. It helps you put the printed tiles together in the right order. If you don't need it, print from page 2 onward.
Does splitting reduce quality?
The tiles reuse existing page content without rasterizing the whole page. Text remains text, vector graphics remain vector graphics, and scans retain their pixels. Margin (pt) shrinks the content to make room for the border; check it at the intended print size.
Why is the ZIP about as large as my PDF, or larger?
Tiles from one source page share its original images and fonts within their output PDF. Fonts shared across source pages can be repeated in each separate output PDF. The archive size depends on those resources, the selected pages and how the files are rewritten; the ZIP is not automatically smaller than the source.
Can I use N-down to share only part of a page?
Not safely. Every tile still contains the content of the whole page and hides the rest behind its page boundary, so a PDF editor can reveal it. To pass on only the visible part, convert the page with PDF to Images and crop the image.
How is this different from Cut PDF?
N-down always cuts into equal pieces from a fixed count. Cut PDF places cut lines where you choose, given as fractions of the page such as 0.25 or 0.5, so the pieces can differ in size.