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Illustrator Tutorial 0005 - How to Tile an Image to Print Across Multiple Pages

If you are using a Photoshop file, or another image file, please follow the full instructions. If you are tiling a file created in Illustrator, skip to step #4.

1. Open Illustrator and create a new file. Set the document size to the size of your image. The example is set to 18x24 inches, in portrait orientation.

2. Go to the FILE menu and choose PLACE.

3. Locate your file, and click the PLACE button.

4. Use the arrow tool to move your image on the page until it is centered within the document bounds.

5. Go to the FILE menu and choose PRINT.

6. On the Macs, click the PAGE SETUP button. Select the DOC_COlor_Printer from the "Format for:" menu. Set the page size to 12x18, landscape orientation (this will be the opposite of your actual document orientation, so that the fewest number of pages will be used).

6a. In Windows, click the Setup button on the bottom of the window. Select the DOC_Color_Printer, and click the Preferences button. In the "Paper and Trays" tab, click the "Advanced" button. Select "12x18" from the list of paper sizes. Click the OK and Print buttons until you get back to the main Print dialog.

7. Click the OK button.

8. In the Print dialog, click the Setup item in the upper left window. Change the Tiling setting to "Tile Imageable Area".

9. In the Preview window at the bottom left, move the image until it is taking up the fewest number of pages. You may have to work at this, but try to get the image to take up just the first couple of pages.

10. After you have arranged the image, change the Printer to the Doc_Color_Printer.

11. Click the General item in the upper left window. Set the pages printed to only the pages that have the image tiles. In our example, this would be pages 1 and 2.

12. Click the PRINT button to print.