[Scribus] Page Orientation Problem in booklet generation

[Peter Linnell]

On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 01:18, Carol Kankelborg wrote:
> I don't know if this is a problem with scribus or not.
> 
> I have a scribus file with 36 half-letter-sized pages which will be 
> combined into
> a booklet made from letter-sized paper folded in half.  I generate the PDF for
> printing the booklet as follows:
> 
> I "print" to a file from scribus (1.1.0) to create "Test.ps."
> I then run the following commands under UNIX (Mac OS X, fink 
> packages, Apple X11b3)
> 
>     psbook -s36 -q Test.ps Test.reorder.ps
>     psnup -h11in -w8.5in -H8.5in -W5.5in -2 -q Test.reorder.ps Test.nup.ps
>     ps2pdf13 Test.nup.ps Test.pdf
> 
> The end result, Test.pdf, should contain pages in landscape 
> orientation with two booklet
> pages in a row on that page.  Instead, some of the pages are in 
> portrait orientation with the booklet
> pages rotated 270 degrees, 2 in a column.  What the portrait pages 
> seem to have in common
> is they only contain images frames and no text frames.  One portrait 
> page does have a text
> frame, but that text frame was rotated 270 degrees in scribus.  I 
> tried putting an empty text
> frame on one of the bad pages and it didn't make a difference. 
> However, putting a text
> frame with some text in it caused the page to be oriented correctly. 
> Looking at the output
> of psnup in gv shows all pages in the correct orientation, so the 
> problem might be with
> ps2pdf.  Could there be some option I should be using to make things 
> come out correctly?
> But, why would adding a text box in scribus change things?  Any help would be
> appreciated.
> 

Carol,

Some thoughts:

ps2pdf will not generate very good pdf's with the defaults. IIRC it will
not embed fonts without optional command line instructions and images
are down sampled to 72 pdi. 

The ghostscript team has made some strides in 8.x with pdfrwite, but it
is still not on the level of Distiller or Scribus for PDF. Just my
opinion and experience. No knock on the ghostscript team, it has really
improved a lot in 7.05+

Unless printing directly to a printer, you will find Scribus will
generate superior PDF in almost all cases. 

The only time I export ps from Scribus is for compatibility testing with
Acrobat Distiller 5.0.5 to keep Franz and Paul honest ;)

The issue here is how to get suitable imposition without spending a ton
of time. 

If you are printing on a say a kinko's or local printer, you should
create the pages as 5.5x8.5 and export them as PDF. Then from acrobat
and a good color laser you should be able to print these duplexed 2up on
letter landscape without too much trouble.

If you are printing on your own ink jet or laser, here is how I would
approach it:

Lay out pages 1-36 on 5.5x8.5 layout. 

Then create a new doc with 18 pages, letter landscape with two layers:

Import the pages one by one so they are in the correct imposition order:

The page import function will import the *contents* of the selected
page, not create a new one. So it is no trouble to import pages from a
different sized doc. I have used this a lot and it works very well.

The reason I suggest layers is the importer will place the content in
the same area as the original, Thus on original import everything will
land on the left side of a landscape layout. Layers keep the content
separate and make it easy to drag the right side content to the correct
position. With Snap-to guides enable in the right place, this should be
very easy. 
Then layout as follows: 

pg 1 left side is back cover/right hand is the front cover
pg 2 left side inside cover / right hand is inside back cover
pg 3 left side right side is title page
so on..

Rule of thumb: 
The page numbers that are imposed side-by-side always add up to 1 more
than the total number of pages in the booklet. 

For example, in an 8-page booklet all pairs of pages add up to 9
(8+1,6+3,7+2 etc.,). Thus 4-5 will be the center spread. 

You might find handy to create a mock up dummy to visualize everything.
It sound like a lot of work, but short of a python script to automate
everything, this will ensure good quality PDF's. 

Hope that helps,
Peter