Book printing challenge - can you meet it?

[Undecided]

Hi - hopefully this is the right forum but it's the closest I could find.

I know about printing n-up, and using the "create booklet" option in the print dialog box but those don't exactly meet my goals.

n-up prints in order, page 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.
Create booklet assumes you will fold the stack down the middle, and so prints, say, a 10 page document as 10, 1, 9, 2, 8, 3, etc.

I want to print 2-up, double-sided, but fold each page, with the fold on the outside edge (on the right). I would then stack the folded pages, wet the folded edge, and use a tool to tear along the fold to create a deckled edge. (The end result is that each page has a rough edge.)

So, to do that, it would have to print 2-up, with pages in the order of 1, 4, 2, 3, 5, 8, 6, 7, etc.

(Or it might be 1, 4, 3, 2, 5, 8, 7, 6, etc. depending on how the printer handles the back side.)

Any idea on how to print like this?

_____________________

The second challenge is that I'm composing the document formatted for 5.5x8.5, so two would fit exactly on an 8.5x11 paper in landscape, but I can't seem to get the process to avoid adding white space around each page - just doing the 2-up or create booklet method, which, as noted above, doesn't print the pages in the right order. I suppose I could just buy some 5.5x8.5 paper and be done with it but I won't have a deckled edge.

Thanks!

 

[macuser453787]

Hi - hopefully this is the right forum but it's the closest I could find.

I know about printing n-up, and using the "create booklet" option in the print dialog box but those don't exactly meet my goals.

n-up prints in order, page 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.
Create booklet assumes you will fold the stack down the middle, and so prints, say, a 10 page document as 10, 1, 9, 2, 8, 3, etc.

I want to print 2-up, double-sided, but fold each page, with the fold on the outside edge (on the right). I would then stack the folded pages, wet the folded edge, and use a tool to tear along the fold to create a deckled edge. (The end result is that each page has a rough edge.)

So, to do that, it would have to print 2-up, with pages in the order of 1, 4, 2, 3, 5, 8, 6, 7, etc.

(Or it might be 1, 4, 3, 2, 5, 8, 7, 6, etc. depending on how the printer handles the back side.)

As far as I know, InDesign's Print Booklet feature will always assume that there is supposed to be binding on the left edge and therefore considers the right edge to be the "face" as we say in the printing industry.

If I'm understanding what you wrote correctly, then it sounds like you may have to allow it to print with a "Saddle Stitch" setup, create your edge effect, do a slight trim on the left edge (so that they become individual 5.5-ish x 8.5 pages), then re-collate into the correct page order. Of course, if the binding is to be saddle stitching then you wouldn't want to trim the left edge off because that will be the spine of the book. But it sounds like you're wanting the individual 5.5 x 8.5 sheets and will be using another binding method...?

Other than that, you could try playing with the other Print Booklet options such as "Perfect Bound" and "Consecutive" and see what it does.

Obviously it would be best to minimize your post-printing steps. Depending on how you intend to bind these pages together, if you can avoid having to collate after the fact then that would be a good thing.

 

[NXTMIKE]

...another question about the Print Booklet feature:

How come whenever I go to "Print Booklet", I only get the option to print to a printer, and not save or print to PDF?

 

[macuser453787]

...another question about the Print Booklet feature:

How come whenever I go to "Print Booklet", I only get the option to print to a printer, and not save or print to PDF?

I don't recall at the moment whether you can go directly to PDF through Print Booklet. However, you should be able to print to a Postscript file and then drag that Postscript file onto Distiller to create the PDF.

I'm not sure what version of InDesign you're using, but AFAIK v. CS3-CS5.5 (haven't used CS6 yet so don't know about that version) should have a button in the Print Booklet window for Print Settings which opens up a separate window that has all the same controls as the regular Print window. In that window, you can specify Postscript file output instead of a physical printer.