[scribus] printing 2 A5 pages in a A4 sheet

[Jan Schrewe]

Am Freitag 23 Oktober 2009 14:26:08 schrieb Federico Bruni:
> Hi all,
>
> my request is not related to Scribus but I know there are people here
> who can help me, and that's urgent: I need to print a flyer to
> distribute in a conference which takes place tomorrow.
>
> I have both A4 and A5 .pdf files (1 page). I want to print two copies
> for each page, so 2 A5 flyers for each A4 paper.
> Unfortunately I've never found a printer shop who was able to do it..
>
> These are the .pdf, just in case you want to try:
> http://fscons.org/helping
>
>
> Here's what I've done:
> * create a copy of the A5 .pdf
> * merge the two pdf in a two-page pdf file (A5)
>
> then I try to transform in A4 1 page:
>
> * either print to file with Okular --> but I get two pages, even
> though I've set landscape, no margins and two pages per sheet
>
> * or use the following commands:
> pdftk 1.pdf 2.pdf cat output 12.pdf
> pdf2ps 12.pdf
> psnup -l -Pa5 -pa4 -2 12.ps output.ps
> ps2pdf -sPAPERSIZE=a4 output.ps output.pdf
>
> the imposition is correct but I get a poor quality output
> maybe the problem is with the ps conversion, in fact I get these warnings:
>
>   **** Warning:  Generation number out of 0..65535 range, assuming 0.
>     **** Warning:  Generation number out of 0..65535 range, assuming 0.
>     **** Warning:  File has an invalid xref entry:  1.  Rebuilding
> xref table.
>
>     **** This file had errors that were repaired or ignored.
>     **** The file was produced by:
>     **** >>>> iText 2.1.5 (by lowagie.com) <<<<
>     **** Please notify the author of the software that produced this
>     **** file that it does not conform to Adobe's published PDF
>     **** specification.
>
> Can anybody help me?
> I'm sorry for the OT request, please let me know which could be the
> right place where asking such information.
>
> Best regards,

I would use Acrobat Reader open the two page document and print to a file. The 
scaling options are "Multiple Pages per Sheet". This should give you an A4 
postscriptfile. The attached script should convert this back to pdf. This 
generates an PDF X/3 if you don't need that, you might want to fiddle with 
the ghostscript options.

Hope that helps

Jan

---

#!/bin/bash

TMPPATH="/tmp/"

function usage
{
	echo "$0 is used to create a PDF-X document from a postscript file"
	echo ""
	echo "Options: $0 -h -p <profile> -t <title> -f <infile> -o <outfile> [-i 
<infotext>]"
	echo ""
	echo "-h            : display this help."
	echo "-p <profile>  : the colour profile embedded in the resulting PDF"
	echo "-t <title>    : The title of your PDF"
	echo "-f <infile>   : Name of the input file"
	echo "-o <outfile>  : Name of the output file"
	echo "-i <infotext> : an optional infotext. If not given the title is used"
	exit
}

while getopts "hp:t:i:f:o:" opt
do
	case "$opt" in
		h) usage ;;
		p) PROFILE=$OPTARG ;;
		t) TITLE=$OPTARG ;;
		i) INFO=$OPTARG ;;
		f) INFILE=$OPTARG ;;
		o) OUTFILE=$OPTARG ;;
	esac
done

# validate options
for x in "$PROFILE" "$TITLE" "$INFILE" "$OUTFILE"
do
	if [ -z "$x" ]
	then
		echo "A parameter is missing, please check your arguments."
		echo ""
		usage
	fi
done

# set info to title if no info was provided
if [ -z "$INFO" ]
then
	INFO=$TITLE
fi

# create the PDF-X file to embedd
(
cat <<EOF
%!
% $Id: PDFX_def.ps 8284 2007-10-10 17:40:38Z giles $
% This is a sample prefix file for creating a PDF/X-3 document.
% Feel free to modify entries marked with "Customize".

% This assumes an ICC profile to reside in the file (ISO Coated sb.icc),
% unless the user modifies the corresponding line below.


systemdict /ProcessColorModel known {
  systemdict /ProcessColorModel get dup /DeviceGray ne exch /DeviceCMYK ne and
} {
  true
} ifelse 
{ (ERROR: ProcessColorModel must be /DeviceGray or DeviceCMYK.)=
  /ProcessColorModel cvx /rangecheck signalerror
} if


% Define entries to the document Info dictionary :

/ICCProfile ($PROFILE) def  % Customize or remove.

[ /GTS_PDFXVersion (PDF/X-3:2002) % Must be so (the standard requires).
  /Title ($TITLE)                  % Customize.
  /Trapped /False                 % Must be so (Ghostscript doesn't provide 
other).
  /DOCINFO pdfmark

% Define an ICC profile :

currentdict /ICCProfile known {
  [/_objdef {icc_PDFX} /type /stream /OBJ pdfmark
  [{icc_PDFX} <</N systemdict /ProcessColorModel get /DeviceGray eq {1} {4} 
ifelse >> /PUT pdfmark
  [{icc_PDFX} ICCProfile (r) file /PUT pdfmark
} if

% Define the output intent dictionary :

[/_objdef {OutputIntent_PDFX} /type /dict /OBJ pdfmark
[{OutputIntent_PDFX} <<
  /Type /OutputIntent              % Must be so (the standard requires).
  /S /GTS_PDFX                     % Must be so (the standard requires).
  /OutputCondition (Commercial and specialty printing) % Customize
  /Info ($INFO)                     % Customize
  /OutputConditionIdentifier (CGATS TR001)      % Customize
  /RegistryName (http://www.color.org)   % Must be so (the standard requires).
  currentdict /ICCProfile known {
    /DestOutputProfile {icc_PDFX}  % Must be so (see above).
  } if
>> /PUT pdfmark
[{Catalog} <</OutputIntents [ {OutputIntent_PDFX} ]>> /PUT pdfmark

EOF
) > $TMPPATH/pdfx.ps

# run gs
gs -dPDFX -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sProcessColorModel=DeviceCMYK -dDownsampleColorImages=false -dAutoFilterColorImages=/FlateEncode -dAutoFilterGrayImage=/FlateEncode -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer -sOutputFile=$OUTFILE 
$TMPPATH/pdfx.ps $INFILE