Book Layout Two-Up PDF

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AKMA
Got the auto-title mojo working
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:13 pm

Re: Book Layout Two-Up PDF

Post by AKMA »

Janet,

Thanks! I was aware, in some obscure recess of my memory, that this would work -- though I feel grouchy about having to construct a page layout that I don't actually want to use as-is. It's probably more complicated for US paper, since our page size doesn't divide elegantly and evenly into half-page sizes, but I'll give this a try.
obeid
Got the styles thing figured out
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Sep 18, 2006 9:24 am
Location: Alcalá de Henares

Re: Book Layout Two-Up PDF

Post by obeid »

There is an easier way to do what you want. Print your Mellel document in a regular format (A4 or US letter) to your PDF printer (available in the MacOS print menu); afterward, drop the resulting pdf document into BookLightning (from http://www.metaobject.com): you will get two facing pages in every sheet, on both sides and paginated as a book.
AKMA
Got the auto-title mojo working
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:13 pm

Re: Book Layout Two-Up PDF

Post by AKMA »

Thanks for the pointer, Obeid, although it looks as though BookLightning imposes the pages, whereas I would just like the pages laid out consecutively, side by side.
palazzo
Got the auto-title mojo working
Posts: 17
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2007 9:47 pm

Re: Book Layout Two-Up PDF

Post by palazzo »

No need to take it to external applications. Open the pdf in Preview and print out with a 2-pages-per-sheet layout. You can even use both sides of the paper, just make a first run with odd pages reverse order, then a second run with even pages normal order.
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AKMA
Got the auto-title mojo working
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:13 pm

Re: Book Layout Two-Up PDF

Post by AKMA »

Thank you, palazzo; that's exactly where our conversation began. We can certainly print pages two-up through the print dialogue box, but this approach entails certain drawbacks -- either needing to construct awkwardly-shaped pages of enlarged text on US-ian 8.5 x 11 pages, or needing to construct half-page layouts to which the Apple print engine seems to add an extra half-inch or so of margins.

Right now I'm working on weird-margin, type-enlarged Letter pages and printing them two-up. The text column won't go quite as high as I'd like it, even with zero top margin, but fifteen- or sixteen-point text produces the general impression for which I was working.
AKMA
Got the auto-title mojo working
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:13 pm

Re: Book Layout Two-Up PDF

Post by AKMA »

The latest version of Cheap Impostor, http://www.cheapimpostor.com/, seems to resolve this problem simply and powerfully.
Axel
New to all this
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jul 27, 2008 7:19 pm

Re: Book Layout Two-Up PDF

Post by Axel »

I have a similar problem:

I'm preparing a book that will be printed on 12 cm x 19 cm paper, but I wanted to print a proof copy on regular A4 paper.
Spending 35$ for imposition software seems a bit expensive, especially since I was able to do this for free several years ago wit troff. Some digging in the man pages lead to a cheaper solution.

You will need the psutils (mine came with MacTeX) and ghostscript.

First I save the file as postscript.

Than I rearrange the pages

Code: Select all

psbook -s16 original.ps > original-b.ps
The -s16 is the signature, i. e. the number of pages used for one block. The value must be a multiple of 4.

An alternative would be to generate an empty page at the end of the document and move it to the front with Leopard's Preview.

After that I use psnup to mount several pages on one sheet of paper, this one is rather tircky:

Code: Select all

psnup -2 -s1 -W12cm -H19cm -pa4 -d original-b.ps >original-2.ps
-2 combines two pages on one sheet.
-s1 tells psnup not to scale the pages.
-W12cm -H19cm is the size of the source pages.
-pa4 is the size of the target page.
-d creates a border around the original page.

The last step is to convert the ps into pdf:

Code: Select all

ps2pdf -sPAPERSIZE=a4 original-2.ps  > original-2.pdf
I couldn't use Preview because it generates letter sized pages.
(psbook and psnup don't create DSC comments.)

Greetings Axel
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