What sharing a sheet costs, in millimetres
Every photograph added to a sheet takes room from the others, and the figures are worth seeing before you choose. On A4 with a 10 mm margin, the usable box is 190 by 277 mm. Divide it up with a 4 mm gutter and you get:
| To a sheet | Each cell | A 4:3 photo inside it | Pixels needed for 200 DPI |
|---|---|---|---|
| One | 190 × 277 mm | 190 × 143 mm | 1496 across |
| Two, stacked | 190 × 136 mm | 181 × 136 mm | 1425 across |
| Four, in a grid | 93 × 136 mm | 93 × 70 mm | 732 across |
The last column is the point. Four to a sheet more than halves the pixels each photograph needs, so a set that would not come under a size limit at one per page often walks under it at four — and the print is still the same size on paper as it would be on a small photographic print. Below about 60 mm across, typed text starts to be a struggle, which is where this stops being a good idea.
Order runs across, then down
Four to a sheet fills the top-left cell first, then the top-right, then the bottom-left, then the bottom-right — the way you read. The photo tray runs in the same direction, so position five in the photo tray is the first cell of the second sheet. If a set has to break across sheets in a particular place, an extra photograph or a duplicate page is the usual way to push it.
Questions about sharing a sheet
Which way round do two photographs go?
It follows the paper. On an upright sheet the two sit one above the other, each getting half the height; on a landscape sheet they sit side by side, each getting half the width. Splitting the long edge is the only division that leaves each half a shape a photograph can use.
Both sides of an identity card on one page — how?
Photograph the front and the back, put them next to each other in the photo tray, and choose two to a sheet. Keep the placement on Fit so neither is cropped, and leave a gutter of about 4 mm so the two do not read as one image. That is the layout most Indian form portals are describing when they ask for a single-page scan of a card.
What does the gutter do?
It is the gap between cells, in millimetres, from none up to twelve. Zero looks tidy with white-bordered photographs and looks like a mistake with edge-to-edge ones. Four millimetres is a good default: enough to separate two documents, small enough not to shrink either.
Why are there faint dashed rectangles in the preview?
They show where each cell sits so you can see the grid while you are setting it up. They are drawn on screen only and are not in the file — nothing is added to the page that you did not put there.