In Windows, the recent versions of Acrobat Reader allow you to print several pages of your document onto a single output page, whether the output is the printer or a postscript or PDF document. My version of Acrobat on linux doesn't give the same option, so here are other ways to do it (but they don't work on 100% of PDF files). Actually, it now works for me on Acrobat Reader 7.0, so much of the following is no longer relevant. You can copy the following examples into a text file and place it somewhere convenient. The pdf2ps, psnup and ps2pdf are common programs that should be on many systems. All my programs do is call them with appropriate arguments. I make no claim that this is the best way to achieve the result.
#!/bin/bash
# Converts pdf to have two pages per side
# correct usage:
# bash doubleside.sh inputfile.pdf outputfile.pdf
pdf2ps $1 temp_file.ps
## Use this line if you want to change the orientation
## Useful for POWERPOINT generated pdf's
#psnup -f -2 temp_file.ps temp_file.2.ps
## Default orientation:
psnup -2 temp_file.ps temp_file.2.ps
## Another orientation (for landscape)
#psnup -l -2 temp_file.ps temp_file.2.ps
ps2pdf temp_file.2.ps $2
\rm temp_file.2.ps temp_file.ps
#!/bin/bash
# Converts pdf to have four pages per side
# correct usage:
# bash quadside.sh inputfile.pdf outputfile.pdf
pdf2ps $1 temp_file.ps
## Use this line if you want to change the orientation
## Useful for POWERPOINT generated pdf's
psnup -f -4 temp_file.ps temp_file.2.ps
## Default orientation:
#psnup -4 temp_file.ps temp_file.2.ps
## Another orientation (for landscape)
#psnup -l -4 temp_file.ps temp_file.2.ps
ps2pdf temp_file.2.ps $2
\rm temp_file.2.ps temp_file.ps