pcb-fabrication
I have a PDF of a PCB I want to etch using toner transfer (photo inkjet paper in a laser printer). The design is fairly small, but I have 8.5×11 paper.
What I'd like to do is print a grid of the design on one sheet. How do I do this?
To make things complicated, the pdf is a secure pdf.
What you can do with an ink printer is to produce a mask by printing onto a transparent (ink compatible) sheet. This is then used to control the exposure of photo sensitized board under a UV light.
Laser toner works as a transfer method because the 'ink' is actually a thermo-plastic (i.e. not 'ink' as in the inkjet) that can be re-heated with an iron and made to stick onto the copper surface as a resist.
You want to have printed ink as close to the PCB surface as possible. In order to do so you need to mirror the top layer.
Best Answer
In Mac OSX you can cut and paste sections from PDFs from the Preview app. I paste them into OmniGraffle and arrange by hand.
Under Linux, you could try converting the PDF to postscript (pdf2ps) then manipulating it with Inkscape. Or, you may be able to do it from a script using poster.
Alternatively, you could just save the image as a bitmap at the resolution you need, then edit the bitmap.