How to put three thin pages in a A4 page PDF?

Question

I would like to convert this manual into a PDF that is easier to print with standard A4 paper and printers.

The pages in the manual are very thin: 74 × 140 mm (W×H), much smaller than a A4 page (whose dimensions are 210 × 297 mm). I would like to have three of them on a A4 page in landscape orientation. Here is a drawing:

        manual pages
      /      |      \
.----V-------V-------V----. 
|.~~~~~~~.~~~~~~~.~~~~~~~.| <- A4 page
||  pag  |  pag  |  pag  ||
||       |       |       ||
||   1   |   2   |   3   ||
|`~~~~~~~'~~~~~~~'~~~~~~~'|
`-------------------------'

I tried using the "print on multiple pages" functionality of evince and okular, but to no avail: they do not allow an odd number of pages to be merged in a single printed page, only powers of two.

How can I generate a PDF where the original thin pages assembled to so have three of them in a A4 page in landscape orientation?

Answer 1

Using the nup feature of pdfjam

pdfjam --a4paper --landscape --nup 3x1 --outfile out.pdf GY300_Dtype_E.pdf

(tested with pdfjam version 2.08 on Ubuntu). Some systems may provide separate a pdfnup executable - AFAIK the command syntax is the same.

PDFjam README