From: Ian Douglas Sent: 03 December 2004 14:25

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,

I haven't had to do this under Lunix but I would think the latest version of OpenOffice worth a look.

Scribus http://www.scribus.org.uk/ might be a better match for what you need. Again haven't used it myself but from what I've read it sounds the sort of thing you're after.

Keith ____________ Each of us must journey through the dots, - beyond the dots, and to the truth, alone. - Russell Hoban