48 pages on 12 sheets of paper? conceptual difficulty

[Peyrol]

I would like to create a booklet which is 48 pages long, using 12 sheets of 8.5"x11" paper. Each side of a sheet will contain two pages. Page 1 is the front cover, and page 48 is the back cover. The printer does only one side at a time, so the first pass will print the following 12 sheets:

left side	right side
page 48	page 1
page 46	page 3
page 44	page 5
page 42	page 7
page 40	page 9
page 38	page 11
page 36	page 13
page 34	page 15
page 32	page 17
page 30	page 19
page 28	page 21
page 26	page 23

Then I turn the stack of sheets over and put them back in the printer for the second pass:

left side	right side
page 2	page 47
page 4	page 45
page 6	page 43
page 8	page 41
page 10	page 39
page 12	page 37
page 14	page 35
page 16	page 33
page 18	page 31
page 20	page 29
page 22	page 27
page 24	page 25

I thought Scribus would offer the best control over how each sheet will look.
In the New Document window, I choose double sided. Then I need to "choose a size." But size of what? A page of my booklet, or the sheet of paper I will print them on? Should I divide 11" by half to get the width of my booklet page? Which of the many names for paper sizes would 5.5"x8.5" correspond to, if any?

If I choose Letter size, then I get a page which is actually twice as wide as what I want to work with. I could pair my pages together to make the page size Scribus wants to use, but in that case, what was the point in selecting a double sided format?

It seems as though Scribus does not want me to mess with printing details as I have described. It's like, if I am making a professional document, I should let professional printers deal with that stuff. But I just want to print a booklet out on my printer.

I must be missing something obvious. Any clue would be appreciated. Would I be better off using LO Writer in landscape mode? My formatting needs are not that fancy, after all. Thanks for your time.

[utnik]

hi peyrol

usually this impositioning stuff is not a scribus task. but if it's only an easy booklet job, there's no need for a specialized software – you can print your booklets with adobe reader.
i would never mess up the pages during the layout process. with a doublesided layout and pages in normal order you can look at the final double pages of your booklet while working on it. and you don't have to readjust the whole layout, when you need some more pages...

utnik

[samps]

For a 48 page 4-up booklet I usually take twelve sheets of paper, stack them and fold them so I now have an empty booklet.

Then, with a pencil, I write the page numbers where I want them to appear in my finished publication.

Unfold the stack and each sheet will show you the orientation and placement of the pages that get printed on it.

It also works with 8-up publications, you just fold twice before numbering.

Samps

[Peyrol]

I appreciate your help.

hi peyrol

usually this impositioning stuff is not a scribus task. but if it's only an easy booklet job, there's no need for a specialized software – you can print your booklets with adobe reader.

I can print a document with adobe reader, but I cannot create one with that software. I haven't created this document yet.

What software would you recommend to create a document as I have described?

i would never mess up the pages during the layout process. with a doublesided layout and pages in normal order you can look at the final double pages of your booklet while working on it. and you don't have to readjust the whole layout, when you need some more pages...

That's what I want Scribus to do for me. I want to work with individual booklet pages which are 5.5" wide and 8.5" high. So, what am I doing wrong? I described the quandry I face right off the bat, in the New Document window. Apparently, double sided is the correct choice. Should I choose Letter size? That's the size of the sheet, not the page. I don't mean to sound condescending, but this is an important distinction to me. In my double sided layout, a page is one fourth of a sheet of paper. What choices should I make in the New Document window so that I can work with 5.5"x8.5" pages and not worry about how the pages will be combined on 8.5"x11" sheets?

[Nermander]

In Scribus you create your document with the intended PAGE SIZE (not the sheet size).

The "double sided" setting only affects how Scribus shows the pages on screen, the pages are still individual pages and will be printed or exported as single pages.

Then to place the pages on to the sheet you need to perform an impositioning.
Here is a page suggesting several different tools
http://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Imposition_tools

For a simple booklet (which it sounds as you want to create) I would choose Bookbinder. It's preview can't handle embedded fonts (if I recall correct) but the exported result should work.

[utnik]

hi peyrol

I can print a document with adobe reader, but I cannot create one with that software...
...What software would you recommend to create a document as I have described?

create it with scribus and export your file as a .pdf – that's what scribus is programmed for!
but with adobe reader you have a basic 'booklet printing' option...

if you need a better .pdf manipulating tool, take a look at jpdftweak. this is a java based aplication for altering .pdf files. (split, merge, reorder, rotate pages and many more...) booklet reordering (the part of impositioning you're searching) is one of the basics of jpdftweak (with different presets...)

utnik

[bengriffith50]

I had the same question about page size.  Since there wasn't a clear answer I went digging in case anyone else comes accross this.  5.5 x 8.5" page size is called "Statement" which in the current version of Scribus is called "STMT"