Selling PDFs as a printer's spread, and printing advice

I am actually going to do this for Looney Labs, with a free PDF booklet that is already imposed and done 2-up, so that the end user just prints, folds, and (if he can find a deep stapler) staple.

The way that I plan to do this does not require imposition software at all... but it DOES require a "proper" Acrobat PDF setup--or, at least, one which allows you to print as a file to a particular PostScript Printer Description (PPD) and then run Distiller over the resulting PostScript (PS) file. It's like this:

If you install AdobePS and set it up with the PPD of a printer that has a "Booklet" option, then you can print to a PS file and it will be imposed and 2-up (and, sadly, sometimes scaled--I didn't say this was without a need to experiment).

I will be using the PPD for an IBM InfoPrint Color--but that's because I will cheat a bit and print to file at work (where I have a net connection to said printer). I just print to the PS file, drag it onto a Distiller window with a properly configured set of Job Options, and it spits out a PDF imposed and ready to print as-is onto any duplex printer. Just search printer manufacturers for one which does booklet, 2-up imposition output, and use its PPD.

(Sorry, folks, I can't solve the "how do I print duplex on a non-duplex printer without flipping sheets or photocopying" problem. I don't think God Itself can....)

Quote from: Narf the Mouse on October 18, 2006, 08:55:33 PM

How does that differ from simply printing the odd pages, then printing the even pages on the back side? (I think there's something I'm missing...)

They're talking about how to do 2-up, 2-sided, imposed, so that when the whole stack is folded in half, all the pages are in the right place. Thus, the first sheet would have (for, say, a 16 page book):
Side A: pages 1 and 16
Side B: pages 2 and 15
...and 1 and 2 are back-to-back and upright, and 15 and 16 are back-to-back and upright (i.e. if you could see through the paper).
Each subsequent sheet would have 4 pages, in a similar pattern, until the "midpoint" sheet has:
Side A: pages 5 and 8
Side B: pages 6 and 7

You simply can't pull that off with mere page flipping. Unless you are REALLY patient and willing to select specific pages, and then set the printer to 2-up (or use cut & paste--literally, with paper--and mock up the imposition to photocopy it). They are not referring to simply duplexing (i.e. 2-sided printing) a full-size, 1-up layout (i.e. 8.5"x11", with two pages per sheet--front and back--in sequential order).

All that said, there is yet ANOTHER way you could do it, but it's about as painful as manual:
If your DTP program allows you to "freeze flows" or generally "lock" pages, then you could make the book at 5.5"x8.5", lock the pages, and then PDF. When you get the PDF output, open it in Acrobat, and save out each individual page as a single PDF. THEN, pull each individual page back into your DTP package, this time into an 8.5"x11" page setup, and manually impose the above sheet layout patterns.

Lastly, please keep in mind that you can only really do this with a smaller booklet (i.e less than, say, 32 x 4 = 128 pages). Much longer than that, and the fold-in-half process will make the book VERY round-spined (i.e. not a crease at all, but a noticeable curvature) and round-faced (i.e. the "edge" of pages will, when held flat, form a riffling curve from front, out to the middle, and back at the end). Try it now: take about 40 sheets of paper, fold them in half, and look at how round-faced and -spined the book ends up.

Which is why SERIOUS imposition software will break such 2-up, folded layout into smaller chunks (signatures) and expect another process to bind the folded signatures together (i.e. glue or sewing). It will also account for "page creep," which is what happens when a rounded face is face trimmed to be flat: the outside margin would get narrower at the middle of each signature, because that folded sheet isn't as "deep" into the gutter. Thus, impositions software of the highest order actually takes into account the paper thickness and number of sheets per signature, and VERY sightly adjusts the page margins inward as they approach the midpoint of a signature, so that when their excess paper is trimmed, it appears to have the same margin width.

*Pshew* I think we could use a Sticky thread in this forum, to define common stuff like this (or, better, to link to Wikipedia or Answers.com or something). These sorts of threads crop up pretty regularly (though, to its credit, this thread is unique in its aim, if not in how the answers to that aim are explained).

HTH;
David