Collate

When referring to printing, collate is a term used to describe how printed material is organized. For example, if you had a document that was five pages long and was printing multiple copies with collate enable it would print pages 1,2,3,4 and 5 in that order and then repeat. However, if collate was disabled and you were printing 3 copies of those same five pages it would print pages 111,222,333,444, and then 555.

Collating is often enabled by default however can be adjusted through the print window that appears right before printing. For example, in Microsoft Word a user would enable / disable collate by performing the below steps.

1. Open Microsoft Word and the document you wish to print.
2. Click File and Print.
3. In the Print Window check or uncheck the collate option to enable or disable it.

Also see: Printer definitions