Beginner question - repaginating.

[Apeloverage]

I'm currently working on a document which will be about 8 (A6) pages.

I will be printing it on an A5 piece of paper.

Page 1 will have to be on the same A5 as Page 8. Page 2 should be with page 7, and so on.

How do I set up the pages so that they're arranged this way?

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forum Apeloverage.

Unless I've misunderstood your question, the thing you're talking about is called "impositioning". Just type that word into a search engine to get way more information than you might want to read.

Scribus can't do impositioning itself but there is a lot of free software that you can use to do it for you and this post should give you a start in your search: http://forums.scribus.net/index.php/topic,40.0.html

[Apeloverage]

Thanks!

[Apeloverage]

This page seems to explain how to do it without extra software other than a pdf reader:

https://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Making_a_booklet_with_Scribus_and_Adobe_Reader

[GarryP]

Thanks for posting that link Apeloverage. I'm sure that people will find it useful.

One problem that some people might have is that Adobe Reader has been discontinued for Linux.

So does anyone have a Linux alternative that offers the same impositioning functionality?

[utnik]

...does anyone have a Linux alternative that offers the same impositioning functionality?

not exactly the same – but jpdftweak should do the job (with a reordered .pdf file)

utnik

[GarryP]

Thanks for posting that utnik.

Since jPDF Tweak is Java-based, so pretty much anyone can use it if they've got Java on their machine, it might be good if someone could put together a tutorial showing people how to use it.

It doesn't have to be fully comprehensive but something showing how to do the basic stuff in relation to Scribus would be a good start for someone wanting to give it a try.

I don't use impositioning so there's no point in me writing it but if someone wants to put some text together I will probably be able to help in getting it into a nice format for the Wiki.

If we have a "one stop shop" - or at least a jumping off point - for impositioning information then the next time someone asks about it (no matter what system they're using) all it takes is a quick link.

[utnik]

hi garry

[size=78%]...[/size]it might be good if someone could put together a tutorial showing people how to use it.

when you follow the link from my last post, you'll find this manual – i wont go to rewrite this...

utnik

[GarryP]

Hi utnik.

I spotted the link to the manual but I wasn't expecting anyone to re-write it.

All I was suggesting was that someone have a go at re-wording the tutorial linked to by Apeloverage above but putting it in the context of using jPDFTweak.

Having looked at the tutorial again it looks like the actual impositioning technique is achieved by a simple Export function so it may be that all is needed is adding a note or two to the original saying how do the same thing(s) in jPDFTweak. This could be as simple as saying "... and in jPDFTweak you choose menu XXX->YYY instead...". That sort of thing.

It's probably not a lot of work - and I could probably have a guess at it - but as I don't do impositioning I couldn't be sure I could do it right myself. It needs an expert to check that there's no mistakes.

[a.l.e]

hi

there are a few solutions around...

my question is: does anybody know if there are tools that guarantee that all properties of the original PDF(s) are kept (if possible) in the generated one?

- PDF version?
- fonts embedded?
- color management?
- ....

personally, i have no experience with it and i would be happy if people having used them in production could report if they had any issues with the print shops.

[Nermander]

I haven't looked into it, but from what I understand of the PDF format I think pretty much everything should be retained when using tools like jpdftweak.

When I made impositions with postscript files (psutils and some home-made perl scripts) it was more or less just a rearrangement of the data within the file and some additions of scaling and rotating the "workspace" for each page.

When using tools where you "print" to a new PDF I think a lot of stuff may be lost because the intermediate "printer format" does not allow for all PDF features.

[utnik]

as i don't use jpdftweak for professional print jobs (in this case the print shop does the impositioning), i don't know if anything will be lost by rearranging the pages with this tool – but i don't think so...


utnik

[GarryP]

Interesting.

Since impositioning is only done for physical printing I'd say that it was vital that whatever tool was used would retain everything that was needed to properly print the document.

Does anyone have proof that Acrobat Reader - and/or the new Reader DC - does this? It would certainly be useful to know (and could be added to the Wiki page for reassurance).

As I've said, I'm not an expert in this but, if impositioning - from the view of the user at least - is just the act of changing the order of the pages, and since Scribus is primarily for creating PDFs for print, it sounds fairly reasonable to me that Scribus could handle this itself. It would be one fewer step for the user and they'd be reassured that it was done right. (I've noticed a ticket on Mantis https://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=11137 but it doesn't sound optimistic.)

On the other hand, following on from what utnik said, is this something best left to the print shop? They, after all, should know what they're doing. I guess some might not but, if not, would you trust them to print anything at all?

[Nermander]

While the basis of impositioning is quite easy (reordering, scaling and rotating), the rules to create a specific imposition can become complex.

Just have a look at the dialog in jpdftweak, for a simple 4-up printing (this is not intended to be folded into signatures!).



Now, this dialog only handles the pages of the document to be imposed (reordering, scaling, rotating, placement on the sheet), it does not consider the sheet size of the printer or the printer margins. Also It does not (as far as I know) handle bleed correctly.

So while it would probably be easy to make Scribus do the impositions, the interface to define/describe the imposition schemes would be harder to write. And most users would say "it's way to complicated" because they just want to make a simple booklet, while the imposition feature should be able to handle more complex impositions.

Also I think many users would get problems when trying to do an imposition that is not correct for the printer.

[GarryP]

My goodness, I'm glad I don't have anything to do with impositioning.

I think you're totally correct that most users - including myself - would run away from a dialog like that. Some of it I can understand - I think - but a lot of it looks like it needs a good bit of experience to properly understand it enough to be able to use it right. And using it incorrectly will probably produce some very expensive mistakes.

I'd say that most users can do without a tool that needs a training course to understand. As long as there are tools out there for people who need them - as long as they work properly as mentioned above - then that should satisfy people's needs.

All in all I'd say to just get on friendly terms with a good print shop that can do all of that stuff for you. If they get it wrong then it's their problem. If you tell them to do it wrong then it's your problem and, more importantly, your money.