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Scribus => Beginner Talk => Topic started by: Apeloverage on July 13, 2016, 10:23:33 AM

Title: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: Apeloverage on July 13, 2016, 10:23:33 AM
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?
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: GarryP on July 13, 2016, 10:59:28 AM
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
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: Apeloverage on July 16, 2016, 08:21:04 AM
Thanks!
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: Apeloverage on July 23, 2016, 07:46:01 AM
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
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: GarryP on July 23, 2016, 10:46:01 AM
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?
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: utnik on July 23, 2016, 07:28:49 PM
Quote from: GarryP on July 23, 2016, 10:46:01 AM...does anyone have a Linux alternative that offers the same impositioning functionality?

not exactly the same – but jpdftweak (http://jpdftweak.sourceforge.net/) should do the job (with a reordered .pdf file)

utnik
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: GarryP on July 25, 2016, 04:57:50 PM
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.
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: utnik on July 26, 2016, 01:10:22 AM
hi garry

Quote from: GarryP on July 25, 2016, 04:57:50 PM[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 (http://jpdftweak.sourceforge.net/), you'll find this manual (http://jpdftweak.sourceforge.net/manual/index.html) – i wont go to rewrite this...

utnik
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: GarryP on July 26, 2016, 10:10:33 AM
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.
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: a.l.e on July 26, 2016, 11:12:15 AM
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.
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: Nermander on July 26, 2016, 08:33:46 PM
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.
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: utnik on July 26, 2016, 11:09:37 PM
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
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: GarryP on July 27, 2016, 10:45:01 AM
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?
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: Nermander on July 27, 2016, 01:28:34 PM
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!).

(http://jpdftweak.sourceforge.net/screenshot.png)

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.
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: GarryP on July 27, 2016, 02:12:56 PM
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.
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: Nermander on July 27, 2016, 03:08:47 PM
I spent quite a while a few years ago writing perl scripts to do impositions with psutils pstops, the sole purpose of the scripts were to build the command line for pstops.

One way to make it easier to understand may be something like:

1. Set the sheet size (for the printer)
2. Set the sheet margins (how far to the edge can the printer print?)
3. Divide the remaining area (we can call it the print area) into rows and columns, giving us "cells"
4. For each sell, specify how the page should be scaled, rotated and aligned
5. Decide on how the pages of thenfile to impose shall be grouped. Basically there are two ways, I call them Signature and Magazine. But in reality there can be combinations of them!
6. Specify what page should go into which cell of the sheet.

After step 3 you could be given a graphical representation of the sheet, and then place "placeholders" for the pages into the cells. I did once make an attempt to use Scribus for this, creating a document for the sheet, placing guides and then my intention was to use image frames and import pages from a PDF into them (scripted of course).

As for step number 4, my script used cardinals, like N (top centered), NE (top right), SW (bottom left).

For step 5, when doing signatures, the file is grouped by a number of pages at a time (I called this blocks, because this is what pstops called them). If doing 8 page signatures, first block is pages 1-8, second block 9-16 etc.

For a magazine imposition however, the first block would contain half of the pages from the beginning of the file and half from the end. If doing 4 page signatures (booklet printing) of a 16 page document, the first block would be pages 1, 2, 15 and 16. With pstops the latter was done by using negative page numbers, so the page specification would be 1, 2, -3 and -4.

But it also possible to do "inserted" signatures (I'm not sure of the english term). For example making each signature a small "booklet" of two sheets. Then each "block" would use two sheets, first sheet would have pages 1, 2, 7 and 8, second sheet 3, 4, 5 and 6.

I started on a wiki article about my scripts a few years ago, but never got the time to insert some good examples.
https://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/How_to_make_impositions_with_pstops

I used my scripts for binding several books (downloaded from Project Gutenberg, typeset using GutenMark and LyX/LaTeX and then imposed with my scripts before printing, folding and binding, and then reading).
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: a.l.e on July 27, 2016, 03:09:12 PM
i'm trying to learn enough c++ to create a bunch of tools that use ghostscript (or another library?) to do one type of imposition each...

i have other project that i have to finish first, though...

but in the meantime, i would be interested in knowing which command line tools / library can be used to manipulate PDFs and keep all the original PDF's properties.

i really have no experience with it and i only have read in the past that not all transformation / tools are safe for professional printing.

we will see what comes out...
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: a.l.e on July 27, 2016, 03:14:47 PM
ps: pstops will probably not be able to keep the pdf properties...

something like this

pdfnup --nup 2x1 --frame false cards-a6.pdf --outfile cards-a5.pdf

might or might not... i don't know. and i don't have any access to tools that could tell.
Title: Re: Beginner question - repaginating.
Post by: Nermander on July 27, 2016, 09:15:13 PM
I dop not think Ghostscript is the best tool for the task, the main purpose for ghostscript is to convert from postscript to other format, which means it includes loads of code to convert postscript to different bitmap formats.

I think there is a package called pdfutils which is a PDF equivalent of psutils (but the name pdfutils seems to be used by many other programs and libraries).

As I tried to explain, the PDF manipulation (scaling, rotating and placing the pages) is the easy part. In postscript, these steps are done by manipulating the coordinate system for the page (scaling, rotating and shifting). It more or less just means that each page is wrapped into a different coordinate system. And since PDF is based on postscript I believe this is easy to accomplish (jpdftweak does it fairly well).

It's the interface to create the "numbers" (scaling factor, rotating angle, placement adjustment) that is the major part.

There are also minor features I haven't mentioned before:

Creep - when folding a signature, the "inner pages" will be closer to the margin than the outer ones, the placement of the page image needs to be compensated for this (based on paper thickness).

This page contains some information on how creep is handled in InDesign.
https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/printing-booklets.html

When rotating pages, sometimes the rotation may need to be adjusted by single degrees, or even fractions of a degree. This depends a lot on how the sheet is folded. So instead of rotating a page 90 degrees maybe the rotation needs to be 89,5 degrees. Most simple impositioning tools only support 90, 180 or 270 degree rotation.