[Tex/LaTex] Booklet printing problem

bookletimpositionprinting

I'm working on Lubuntu linux. I need to create a 8-pages booklet, A5, saddle stitch. Firstly I created this document (a5-doc.tex)…

% a5-doc.tex
\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[margin=20mm, a5paper]{geometry}
\usepackage{kantlipsum}
\usepackage{tgtermes}
\begin{document}
\kant
\kant
\end{document}

..then imposed the PDF (a5-doc.pdf) using bookletimposer. It produced an imposed PDF (a5-doc-conv.pdf), 4 spreads of A4-size with the following order: [8-1][2-7][6-3][4-5] (which is correct).

bookletimposer settings

..and the results (as viewed on screen):

[8-1]

[2-7]

[6-3]

[4-5]

But when it came to print, the [2-7] and [4-5] spreads were flipped vertically in the wrong order.

Here's what it looks like..

Printer info: Laser printer with duplexer, installed using PPD driver.

Printing settings: layout: two-sided (long edge), paper size: A4, orientation: portrait, page scaling: none, auto rotate and center.

PS: When printing single double-side pages, it worked just fine.

I've tried short-edge as well, but didn't work. Do you think it's just a printer issue? I cannot test it using another printer or OS (since I don't have ones). Thank you.

UPDATE:

I tried this one (modified from here). It produced imposed spreads in the right order (just like bookletimposer did). But when printed (using same settings as above), the problem still persist.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[landscape,a4paper]{geometry}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\begin{document}
\includepdf[pages={8,1,2,7,6,3,4,5},nup=2x1]{a5-doc.pdf}
\end{document}

UPDATE 2:

As @ignasi suggested, I tried this one.. and it worked. Although it looks weird on the screen, it's printed correctly. Thanks..

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\begin{document}
% \includepdf[pages=-, nup=2x1, noautoscale, frame, signature*=8, landscape,  angle=180, delta=0 1cm]{a5-doc.pdf}
\includepdf[pages=-, nup=2x1, noautoscale, signature*=8, landscape, angle=180]{a5-doc.pdf}
\end{document}

Screen views:

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Printed version:

btw. I'm a bit confused knowing this trick. It does look weird on the screen, but it works.

I've never had problem so far printing landscape imposed spreads. As long as they're in the right order, they'll be printed perfectly. Even if they're displayed as landscape in the viewer (as usual), they're printed just fine (just like what we see on the screen), no need to rotate the spreads orientation. I thought the printer will do it for us, not vice versa..

Anyway.. this trick has solved my problem. Thank you..

Best Answer

I finally solved the problem. Thanks to @ignasi for this tip.

% imposed.tex
\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\begin{document}
\includepdf[pages=-, nup=2x1, noautoscale, signature*=8, landscape, angle=180]{a5-doc.pdf}
\end{document}

a5-doc.pdf is a plain A5 file which contains the actual contents..

% a5-doc.tex
\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[margin=20mm, a5paper]{geometry}
\usepackage{kantlipsum}
\usepackage{tgtermes}
\begin{document}
\kant % dummy text
\kant % another dummy text
\end{document}

The compiled PDF file looks weird on the screen (compared to bookletimposer's result, see my update screenshots above for details), but it's printed nicely.

PS: a few years ago before I met LaTeX, I used to create plain A5 document using word processor and imposed it using an acrobat plugin (I forgot the name). There were several options and settings for binding, including saddle stitch. Once it's done, there's an imposed PDF ready for print. It looks like bookletimposer's result above (landscape), but printed nicely without further tweaks.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to set a binding offset for multiple pages printed on one sheet

I feel a little uneasy at answering my own question. But lockstep's clue directed me to the twocolumn parameter on the documentclass.

That seems to work fairly. It subdivides the physical sheet into two logical pages. So looks a little like using multicols{2} on the whole document, but with fewer of the drawbacks.

The magic inteplay between documentclass and geometry seems to be (note the exaggerated 5cm inner margin for binding offset -- just to make it easier to see):

\documentclass[a4paper,twocolumn,landscape,10pt]{book}
\usepackage[top=2cm, bottom=2cm, inner=5cm, outer=1cm]{geometry}

This solution may be just the ticket for many documents.

However, I can see problems where I have a wrapfigure inside a miniboxpage with each scaled as a fraction of the \textwidth. It seems \textwidth is sometimes taken as the full physical width of the sheet, and sometimes as the text width of the logical page. I need to isolate cases and investigate further.

Thanks for the responses -- they've given me some hope for the future.

[Tex/LaTex] A5 booklet printing — Title page and TOC are missing

I am far from expert and I am hoping that somebody will have a better answer. However, I have spent quite some time on this problem and, as far as I can tell, the use of geometry just does not agree with the use of booklet no matter what. I know the documentation explains how to work around this using noprint and then print with \nofiles but it has never worked for me. I therefore cannot answer your question since I have no idea how to do this 'properly' if that means 'in a way which both works and uses the method in booklet's documentation.

In fact, I can't even answer it if you mean 'in a way which uses booklet'. I used to have a solution which did that but unfortunately it broke some time ago and things don't seem to have changed since. In case it is useful, I'll explain that solution before explaining what I have found works now. This solution, unfortunately, dispenses with booklet altogether. But it does work.

Solution 1: Use `booklet` without `geometry`

Currently broken - used to work

The way I did this was to initially load geometry with the verbose option and then retrieve the settings it used from the output when I compiled. (These should also be in the log I expect.) I then took geometry out and set the dimensions manually. Then booklet worked fine.

Running your code, for example, the output from geometry you would be looking for would be:

*geometry* verbose mode - [ preamble ] result:
* driver: pdftex
* paper: a5paper
* layout: <same size as paper>
* layoutoffset:(h,v)=(0.0pt,0.0pt)
* modes: 
* h-part:(L,W,R)=(63.16576pt, 294.76926pt, 63.16577pt)
* v-part:(T,H,B)=(71.70166pt, 418.25368pt, 107.55254pt)
* \paperwidth=421.10078pt
* \paperheight=597.50787pt
* \textwidth=294.76926pt
* \textheight=418.25368pt
* \oddsidemargin=-9.10423pt
* \evensidemargin=-9.10423pt
* \topmargin=-37.56833pt
* \headheight=12.0pt
* \headsep=25.0pt
* \topskip=12.0pt
* \footskip=30.0pt
* \marginparwidth=44.0pt
* \marginparsep=10.0pt
* \columnsep=10.0pt
* \skip\footins=10.8pt plus 4.0pt minus 2.0pt
* \hoffset=0.0pt
* \voffset=0.0pt
* \mag=1000
* \@twocolumnfalse
* \@twosidefalse
* \@mparswitchfalse
* \@reversemarginfalse
* (1in=72.27pt=25.4mm, 1cm=28.453pt)

I would then explicitly define the relevant dimensions, dispense with geometry, add a5paper to the class options and proceed. However, this no longer seems to work and last time I needed to do this I could not make it work no matter what. (Right now, the compilation just seems to ignore the paper size settings. So I think you could do it on A4 and then have booklet scale the pages but I haven't tried. I gave up on booklet.)

Solution 2: Use `pdfpages` - avoid `booklet`

This solution is dead simple. The only downside is that you need a second file. All you do is prepare your initial file on A5 paper, ignoring for now the fact that you plan to make a booklet:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[a5paper,verbose]{geometry}
\usepackage{lipsum}  % this package is for creating filler text

\author{N.~N}
\title{The booklet}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\tableofcontents

\section{Europe}
\subsection{Berlin}
\lipsum[4]
\subsection{Paris}
\lipsum[1-3]
\subsection{Vienna}
\lipsum[10]
\subsection{Rome}
\lipsum[15]
\section{Africa}
\lipsum[1-4]
\subsection{Accra}
\lipsum[5-8]
\subsection{Johannesburg}
\lipsum[9-11]
\subsection{Casablanca}
\lipsum[11-12]
\lipsum[5-6]
\section{Asia}
\lipsum[1-4]
\subsection{Tokyo}
\lipsum[5-8]
\subsection{Beijing}
\lipsum[9-11]
\subsection{Mumbai}
\lipsum[11-12]
\lipsum[5-6]

\end{document}

Let's say that the pdf produced is prebooklet.pdf. Then you just need this:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[a4paper]{geometry}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
    \includepdfset{pages=-}

\author{N.~N}
\title{The booklet}

\begin{document}

    \includepdf[pages=-,nup=1x2,landscape]{prebooklet.pdf}

\end{document}

This works perfectly with no trouble at all:

A5 booklet on A4 landscape

The only problem is the pages are not arranged correctly for printing the booklet. But this is easily fixed: just add the signature option:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[a4paper]{geometry}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
    \includepdfset{pages=-}

\author{N.~N}
\title{The booklet}

\begin{document}

    \includepdf[pages=-,nup=1x2,landscape,signature=20]{prebooklet.pdf}


\end{document}

produces, for example:

Prepared signatures for booklet

I used 20 since you presumably want some multiple of 4 and have 17 actual pages of text.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to set a binding offset for multiple pages printed on one sheet

[Tex/LaTex] A5 booklet printing — Title page and TOC are missing

Solution 1: Use booklet without geometry

Solution 2: Use pdfpages - avoid booklet

Related Question

Solution 1: Use `booklet` without `geometry`

Solution 2: Use `pdfpages` - avoid `booklet`