Hi Folks, I have been asked by a friend to print a book of his for Christmas. The book will have 40 A5 size pages. I have created a text file from his had-written manuscript and now want to print about 5 copies to pass to friends for proof reading and suggestions. My problem is that I would like to find a Linux Desk Top Publishing (or Word Processing) program into which I can import the text file and print it out on landscape orientation A4 sheets with the first sheet automatically having A5 page 40 on it's left half and A5 page 1 on it's right half, the second sheet having page 2 on it's left half and page 39 on it's right, the third sheet having page 38 on it's left and page 3 on it's right etc (those of you who have printed booklets will hopefully know the problem I am trying to explain)... Have any ALUG members had any experience of printing books like this, and if so what DTP package did you use? Ian.
Ian Douglas writes:
Have any ALUG members had any experience of printing books like this, and if so what DTP package did you use?
This sounds to me more like a print processing application, rather than DTP. In Windows the best (imho) package for this type of thing is FinePrint. A google for "fineprint linux" shows several people asking for a Linux equivalent, and there are several answers (KDEPrint, for example; look for the Filters tab in the "properties" of the print dialog). A good place to start anyway. DTP in Linux I've not played with but Scribus always gets a mention, so I'd look there too. -- Mark Rogers, More Solutions Ltd :: Tel: 0845 45 89 555
On 2004-12-03 14:25:07 +0000 Ian Douglas <alug@k1ngph1cher.com> wrote:
Have any ALUG members had any experience of printing books like this, and if so what DTP package did you use?
I use psutils on the postscript output file for this, as it's beyond what the "2-up" option in most applications allows. Even if it were possible, it would add a lot of options: for example, you don't really want 160 pages as a single group. Better to have groups of 16 or 32 stuck together with glue strip. I don't mind using special-purpose tools for this. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and not of any group I know Creative copyleft computing - http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ Unsolicited attachments to the pipex address deleted Will HLF fund tree-killings? http://www.thewalks.co.uk/
On 03-Dec-04 Ian Douglas wrote:
Hi Folks,
I have been asked by a friend to print a book of his for Christmas. The book will have 40 A5 size pages. I have created a text file from his hand-written manuscript and now want to print about 5 copies to pass to friends for proof reading and suggestions.
My problem is that I would like to find a Linux Desk Top Publishing (or Word Processing) program into which I can import the text file and print it out on landscape orientation A4 sheets with the first sheet automatically having A5 page 40 on it's left half and A5 page 1 on it's right half, the second sheet having page 2 on it's left half and page 39 on it's right, the third sheet having page 38 on it's left and page 3 on it's right etc (those of you who have printed booklets will hopefully know the problem I am trying to explain)...
Have any ALUG members had any experience of printing books like this, and if so what DTP package did you use?
Ian.
Hi Ian, Before embarking on the actual printing I would (myself) style it up nicely using groff (and since it's for Christmas I'd try to style it up *very* nicely!). [Don't under-rate groff -- it's an excellent DTP tool] The output from that phase would be a PostScript file, corresponding to A4 paper, one page (1-40) per page. Stage 2 is to re-order the pages using psbook (see "man psbook"). Stage 3 is to put the successive re-ordered pages two to each single a4 page (landscape orientation now) using psnup with "-2". If you get your options right with psbook and psnup you will have solved exactly the problem you have stated.
On 03-Dec-04 Ted Harding wrote:
I'd try to style it up *very* nicely!). [Don't under-rate groff -- it's an excellent DTP tool]
The output from that phase would be a PostScript file, corresponding to A4 paper, one page (1-40) per page.
Stage 2 is to re-order the pages using psbook (see "man psbook").
Stage 3 is to put the successive re-ordered pages two to each single a4 page (landscape orientation now) using psnup with "-2".
If you get your options right with psbook and psnup you will have solved exactly the problem you have stated.
I just verified this with an 8-page document in a PS file (which would normally print as 8 pages of A4). The following was sufficient to produce the desired result. 1. psbook doc.ps doc_book.ps --> [8][1][2][7][6][3][4][5] 2. psnup -2 doc_book.ps doc_book_2up.ps --> [8,1][2,7][6,3][4,5] Then (having only a "uniplex" or 1-side-at-a-time PS printer) I opened doc_book_2up.ps is gv and marked pages 1 & 3 for printing thus getting (a)[8,1] and (b)[6,3] on one side of 2 sheets. Then I turned (a) and (b) upside down[*] and put them back in the tray so that (a) was on top with (b) underneath. Then I unselected pages 1 & 3 in gv and selected pages 2 and 4 for printing, this getting [2,7] on the back of [8,1] and [4,5] on the back of [6,3]. The result is: 8 +----------------------- (a) | 7 | 6 |+---------------------- (b) || 5 || 4 |+---------------------- (b) | 3 | 2 +----------------------- (a) 1 So that simple procedure should sort it for you! Best wishes, Ted. [*] PS: "upside down" means exchanging L & R printing edges (the short sides)! Beware not to exchange top & bottom! (very easily done by oversight) -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 [NB: New number!] Date: 03-Dec-04 Time: 18:20:06 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
Hi. On Friday 03 Dec 2004 14:25, Ian Douglas wrote:
My problem is that I would like to find a Linux Desk Top Publishing (or Word Processing) program into which I can import the text file and print it out on landscape orientation A4 sheets with the first sheet automatically having A5 page 40 on it's left half and A5 page 1 on it's right half, the second sheet having page 2 on it's left half and page 39 on it's right, the third sheet having page 38 on it's left and page 3 on it's right etc (those of you who have printed booklets will hopefully know the problem I am trying to explain)...
Have any ALUG members had any experience of printing books like this, and if so what DTP package did you use?
KDEPrint includes 'Print pamphlet' filters which means you can turn anything you can print through KDE into a booklet (the printing term for this is 'imposition', btw). Just print from your DTP / WP app through KDE print (the command is 'kprinter' if you're using an app that uses a different printing system by default but lets you specify your own print command, eg. xpdf, Firefox). Then select 'Properties', click the 'Filters' tab, click the 'Add filter' icon (which looks like a funnel), and select a 'Pamphlet printing' filter. You can either do it in one pass if you've got a duplex printer, otherwise you'll have to do the even pages, re-insert your printed pages the other way round, and then print the odd pages on the backs. Incidentally, the filter turns out to be using the following command: psbook %filterinput | psnup -2 -p%psl | psselect -e %filteroutput which is pretty much what other people here have suggested doing. Hopefully this is a slightly friendlier interface to all of that. Hm, can anyone suggest a way of adjusting for 'creep' (ie. moving the margins inwards for the inner pages)? If your friend's book's just simple text, OpenOffice Writer would probably be fine for laying out. If it's more complex then you might want to try Scribus. IMO it's not quite the Quark killer some have suggested, but it does most of what's required and doesn't crash nearly as often as it used to. HTH, Joe x
While we're on the subject: http://www.scribus.org.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=...
On 03-Dec-04 Joe Button wrote:
Hm, can anyone suggest a way of adjusting for 'creep' (ie. moving the margins inwards for the inner pages)?
See (b) at the end of my first reply to Ian -- this was what I was spelling out (only I didn't use the term 'creep'). In groff you can readily adjust for creep by changing the page offset per page appropriately -- e.g. incrementing it by "0.025c" (0.025 cm = 0.25 mm) depending on the thickness of the paper -- for pages 2, 4, 6, ... in the first half and pages 21, 23, 25, ... in the second half, and decrementing it for pages 1, 3, 5, ... in the first half and for pages 22, 24, 26, ... in the second half (starting each sequence at an appropriate offset). Best wishes, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 [NB: New number!] Date: 03-Dec-04 Time: 18:41:29 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
Just as an added note, "Booklet/imposition support" is on the roadmap for Scribus 1.3, along with lots of other cool sounding stuff.
The message <200412041450.08607.alug@joebutton.co.uk> from Joe Button <alug@joebutton.co.uk> contains these words:
Just as an added note, "Booklet/imposition support" is on the roadmap for Scribus 1.3, along with lots of other cool sounding stuff.
Anyone thought of LaTex? (It was suggested in our Zetnet thread by one of the Zetgods.) -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/ The only way to tell when a Finn is in love with you is that they look at your feet instead of their own.
The message <000a01c4d943$f65183b0$3700a8c0@willowwindmill.net> from "Ian Douglas" <alug@k1ngph1cher.com> contains these words:
Have any ALUG members had any experience of printing books like this, and if so what DTP package did you use?
There's a thread about this in Zetnet groups ATM, and the one most favoured is Coral WordPerfect. But, AFAIK there isn't a Linux version. I'd be delighted to be told I'm wrong... There are some on Ebay Buynow at rather reasonable prices ATM. -- Tony http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/ The only way to tell when a Finn is in love with you is that they look at your feet instead of their own.
On Friday 03 December 2004 8:05 pm, Anthony Anson wrote:
The message <000a01c4d943$f65183b0$3700a8c0@willowwindmill.net>
from "Ian Douglas" <alug@k1ngph1cher.com> contains these words:
Have any ALUG members had any experience of printing books like this, and if so what DTP package did you use?
There's a thread about this in Zetnet groups ATM, and the one most favoured is Coral WordPerfect.
But, AFAIK there isn't a Linux version. I'd be delighted to be told I'm wrong...
There are some on Ebay Buynow at rather reasonable prices ATM.
WP 8.1 is/was available for Linux. I used to have a Corel Linux CD with some packages on. I think I binned that CD a while ago but I will double check. I am pretty sure that earlier versions of SuSE had a time limited demo of WP as well. If not there is always wine.
participants (7)
-
Anthony Anson -
Ian Douglas -
Joe Button -
Mark Rogers -
MJ Ray -
Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk -
Wayne Stallwood