Imposition problem (podofoimpose and images with colour profile)

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chirlu

I made an 8-page booklet with Scribus that contains both text and some images. PDF export works fine, the resulting file can be opened in evince, ghostview, Adobe Reader and looks OK. However, for printing, I need to do a simple imposition: two input pages per output page, one to the left, the other to the right; no scaling, rotation etc. I'm trying to use podofoimpose with this plan: $PageWidth  = 2.0 * $SourceWidth
$PageHeight = $SourceHeight

# source page; destination page; rotation; Tx; Ty;
1; 1; 0; $SourceWidth; 0;
2; 2; 0; 0;            0;
3; 3; 0; $SourceWidth; 0;
4; 4; 0; 0;            0;
5; 4; 0; $SourceWidth; 0;
6; 3; 0; 0;            0;
7; 2; 0; $SourceWidth; 0;
8; 1; 0; 0;            0;


However, when I want to view the resulting file, evince only shows the text, but not the images. (At least, judging from the text, the imposition seems to be correct otherwise.) Evince also outputs a lot of error messages like these: Syntax Warning: Bad ICCBased color space (stream)
Syntax Error (816): Bad image parameters
Syntax Warning: Bad ICCBased color space (stream)
Syntax Error (170764240): Bad image parameters
Syntax Warning: Bad ICCBased color space (stream)
Syntax Error (170768392): Bad image parameters
Syntax Warning: Bad ICCBased color space (stream)
Syntax Error (170768454): Bad image parameters
Syntax Warning: Bad ICCBased color space (stream)
Syntax Error (170720746): Bad image parameters
...

Ghostview doesn't display anything, it just hangs (apparently in some kind of loop, as it continues to consume CPU time for minutes). I couldn't try with Adobe Reader because I don't have access to it on my home computer.

So, my questions are:

  • Is this a known problem? And if so, is it possible to work around it?
  • If there is no way to make it work with podofoimpose, what other options are there? As I said, it is a mere 8 pages, and I could easily reorder them manually within Scribus. But is there a way to merge two adjacent pages into one, in Scribus?

(I am using podofoimpose from the Debian package, which is a bit outdated (0.9.0, while 0.9.2 is current). I had a look at the changes after 0.9.0 and didn't see anything obviously related, but I may have overlooked a fix.)

Any hints appreciated ...

leaf

If icc profie do problem, try use pdf without icc, so  use pdf 1.3, 1.4 etc but not PDF/X-3.
For Imposition users sometimes use pdfjam -nup (option).

Nermander

It sounds like a problem with podofoimpose rather than Scribus.

Have you tried creating the imposition with some other program? I think Multivalent works on all platforms (it's written i java).

utnik


chirlu

Thank you for your suggestions. In the end, I "solved" the issue by sending single pages to the printer, which they agreed to take and impose themselves.


It seems that podofoimpose removes the Output Intent structure from the PDF in addition to mangling the colour profiles, so it is currently unsuitable for PDF/X-3. I asked on the podofo-users mailing list about this, but didn't receive a satisfactory reply why that is or if it can be fixed.

Multivalent did not start for me at all, whereas for jPDF Tweak I couldn't find out how to use acustom target page size. (I didn't check whether it outputs proper PDF/X-3 in the end.)

mnawij

Hey chirlu,

As someone who runs a print shop and does all the design work, you do not necessarily need an imposition tool...  I have three different ones and for anything less than 24 pages or so, it is faster just to impose it by hand.  Yes it takes practice, but well worth learning the fundamentals.  Just googled this and there were several results   http://www.humangray.com/ways-to-visualize-book-imposition-page-layouts/   You can layout a 12pg booklet within scribus then export to pdf/x-3 for your printer next time.  Also please verify what your printer requires, I know several dozen printers who do not use color calibration at all, and the 3 that do, want you to use their custom profiles...  If you have any questions I will be glad to help, though bear with me I am home with a nasty flu bug this week.

mnawij