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Scribus => General Discussion => Topic started by: cezaryece on March 22, 2011, 11:54:01 AM

Poll
Question: Do you need imposition feature in Scribus?
Option 1: What it is?
Option 2: No, I don`t need it.
Option 3: No, there are sufficient other tools already.
Option 4: Yes, but only for simple booklets.
Option 5: Yes and with full control (blind, margins, cut marks)
Title: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: cezaryece on March 22, 2011, 11:54:01 AM
Well, let see what user are thinking about imposition in Scribus - is it needed or not.
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: tik753159 on March 25, 2011, 04:14:57 PM
Quote from: cezaryece on March 22, 2011, 11:54:01 AM
Well, let see what user are thinking about imposition in Scribus - is it needed or not.

I need it and the more the better  ;D

commonly produce 140 p books both sewn and glued (hardcover). Control over cropmarkings and bleed with facing pages is a struggle at the moment, suitable for magazines that crop 4/4 then glue 1/4 but not for 16 page cahiers that require 3/4 cropping. (e.g something to reinvent for pdf prepress setup dialogue)
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: Nermander on March 26, 2011, 09:18:54 PM

I think a general Open Source imposition tool for PDF would be a lot better.

Not all PDFs are created in Scribus.

But of course, if a Scribus imposition tool could impose any PDF...
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: cezaryece on March 28, 2011, 08:22:50 AM
QuoteI think a general Open Source imposition tool for PDF would be a lot better.
Yes, agree in 100%.
But simply impositions like booklet or 4/4 will be great help in the meantime.
PDF tools and scripts can do that, but command line is not what ordinary user with no shell skill expect.
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: Nermander on March 28, 2011, 10:45:39 AM
Quantum Elephants Bookbinder works well for booklets.
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: tik753159 on March 28, 2011, 02:15:50 PM
http://www.creuxdelenfer.net/IMG/png/Capture.png

I don't really need to impose page order for the printer, but page markings are essential, as can be seen in the image file, after pdf export the result is not great, why crop markings on the inner margins (which are set to zero) ?
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: Wena on August 26, 2011, 10:30:53 AM
tik753159 did you get a solution to your problem, in or out of Scribus?

I am also in the same position as your self, needing, some times to work on a 140-150 page book.

Some names of the free Imposition aps would help, with some reviews of them.

Thanks, Wena D. Parry
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: WalksIn2Trees on September 06, 2011, 10:41:44 AM
anyone who "does it all" in house would like imposition to be built into the print function... even for home office work like printing many business cards on one sheet or custom labels...

and being able to pre-impose before printing to PDF can come in handy at times too.

when outputting reference material for a printing company, you might like to make a dummy book so they have something to go by
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: Wena on September 07, 2011, 02:44:42 PM
Yes, WalksIn2Trees I am beginning to come to the same conclusion as your self. I am struggling with getting  a comic strips correctly  on a sheet of A4 paper. I have made several dummy sheets, each time thinking I had them correctly but failed measurably!

They are 4 frames across the A4 portrait and 3 of them on the same face of the paper, then, it is getting all 28 frames on the paper in such a way as to be able to fold on cut with gust 1 staple in the middle.

Wow, how do I do that for my own laser printer.

Wena
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: WalksIn2Trees on September 08, 2011, 07:45:35 PM
Quote from: Wena on September 07, 2011, 02:44:42 PM
Yes, WalksIn2Trees I am beginning to come to the same conclusion as your self. I am struggling with getting  a comic strips correctly  on a sheet of A4 paper. I have made several dummy sheets, each time thinking I had them correctly but failed measurably!

They are 4 frames across the A4 portrait and 3 of them on the same face of the paper, then, it is getting all 28 frames on the paper in such a way as to be able to fold on cut with gust 1 staple in the middle.

Wow, how do I do that for my own laser printer.

Wena

@Wena:  well there's ways...  laser printers are generally not very exact with placement so the image never perfectly backs-up or matches from page to page.  make sure your printer is properly calibrated for printing the image centered on the sheet as well.  If it's not printing centered then that will throw everything off.
From the center out, you should have {Fold; bind margin; content; face margin; face trim; bleed margin}
It sounds like your math might be the issue 2x(3x4)=24 not 28  ;)
If you want, attach an example file with place-holder image frames and I'll look it over.


@Scribus Team: I was in prepress using commercial imposition workflow (Creo Prinergy...though that was 5 years ago). I'm not a programmer, but if the Scribus team would like some insight I would love to contribute.
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: WalksIn2Trees on September 08, 2011, 10:15:18 PM
Quote from: Nermander on March 28, 2011, 10:45:39 AM
Quantum Elephants Bookbinder works well for booklets.

there were many complaints of errors in my serach, but I tested it anyway, I tested it on a file I have and was presented with {undefined error}
it's only a 40 page PDF but it's got a lot of high res images so it's 420 mb so perhaps that was the issue.
but even so, it has limited output options
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: zerubbabel on June 28, 2012, 12:30:24 AM
gimposition from http://www.noliturbare.com/ (http://www.noliturbare.com/) is an excellent free tool that does the most common impositions. It is written for Windows, but works perfectly under Wine in Linux.
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: Nermander on June 28, 2012, 08:47:22 AM
This topic is quite old, today I think jPDFtweak is one of the best solutions. Although it is a bit complex.

Note that (as far as I remember) it can also be run from the command line (but that part is not very well documented, you need to use the --help option to get information on the syntax).
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: Ged on October 28, 2016, 10:40:44 AM
I would prefer to use imposition within Scribus.  Has there been any move to provide it in recent versions?
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: utnik on October 28, 2016, 12:23:07 PM
Quote from: Ged on October 28, 2016, 10:40:44 AM
I would prefer to use imposition within Scribus.

i would prefer a more advanced version of jpdftweak.
there are a lot of layout jobs to make scribus more complex (in programming, maintainance and use...) – impositioning is a job for another software.

utnik
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: Zyphon on October 30, 2016, 06:07:40 PM
I voted for the third option: "No, there are sufficient other tools already.". While I do think it would be nice if there was a built in imposition tool within Scribus I think there are more pressing issues the Scribus team need to focus on first.

jPDFtweak is a good solution although maybe not the easiest piece of software to use. I guess the Open Source community could do with a really good imposition tool that is user friendly and intuitive to use.
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: Nermander on October 31, 2016, 08:05:33 AM
I agree that an improved version of jpdftweak probably would be the best solution.

Some improvements I could think of:
- sheet margins (i.e. don't print to the edge of the sheet)
- automatic calculation of page locations on the sheet (compensate for pages that need to be adjusted up/down/left/right within their "cell")
- handling of bleed (Scribus can add bleed and trim marks, but in an imposition they would need to be cropped in the gutter)
- adjustment for creep
- adjustment for pages twisting when folded (not sure of the term, we are talking about a rotation in maybe 1-2 degrees)
- signature numbering and collation marks

Since I haven't used any professional imposition programs I don't know how they work.
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: nathbeadle on November 24, 2016, 09:00:53 PM
It's funny that this poll has appeared as I just last week needed to deal with this exact same thing.

I would love to see it in Scribus! Even if it's an implementation of something that already exists how can it hurt to have such a major program bring it to the masses and have that many more people's eyes on it, using it, and finding bugs and suggestions?

For me I do a lot of work in Scribus, but I ended up having to do a booklet and went back to InDesign as it includes all that I need for imposition. This would be one of the final major nails in the coffin of InDesign if Scribus included it.
Title: Re: POLL - Imposition in Scribus
Post by: Nermander on November 25, 2016, 10:58:21 AM
Quote from: nathbeadle on November 24, 2016, 09:00:53 PM
how can it hurt

  • Makes the code more complex
  • Takes developing resources from other features
  • Makes Scribus more compliacated for those who do not need the feature

What most people ask for is plain booklet printing, that can usually be achieved by printing from the PDF viewer.