Feature Request: PDF Export in Booklet Layout

[Caradoc]

I know I can use the 'Print PDF' option to create a PDF in booklet format. What I can't do is print a PDF that contains bleed and crop marks properly. It would be wonderful to have a feature that would allow me this as a part of the export function - to be able to export a document into a PDF with the option of creating it as a booklet, properly imposed and as a printer ready file with the printer marks displayed.

[mac_heibu]

You want crop marks. This implies, that you don‘t print at home, but engage a print company for this reason.

I never dealt with a print company, which requests pre-imposed booklets from its customers. This is often really counter-productive, because „imposing“ is much more than sorting pages.

Are you really sure, that your print supplier doesn‘t want single pages, so that he can impose it properly in-house?

[Caradoc]

19 hours ago, mac_heibu said:

You want crop marks. This implies, that you don‘t print at home, but engage a print company for this reason.

I never dealt with a print company, which requests pre-imposed booklets from its customers. This is often really counter-productive, because „imposing“ is much more than sorting pages.

Are you really sure, that your print supplier doesn‘t want single pages, so that he can impose it properly in-house?

They could have done the imposition for me, but I wanted to learn how to organise a file to be print ready - they gave me the details they wanted - which included a 3mm bleed and crop marks.

[mac_heibu]

In this case, your booklet is a very limited one. If you need more pages, you have to compensate the position of your pages – so called „page creep“.. (Inner pages need a different relative position than outer ones – and for this, you need imposition software and, above all: knowledge)

 

[Caradoc]

Yeah - knowledge is something I am gaining slowly. It's a 32 page booklet, which has been written and laid out. At the moment what I'm interested in is how to take a document in page order, and place it in booklet format. I can print to pdf as a booklet no worries, but doing that (at least with MS Print to PDF) leaves off the bleed and crop marks, even when both are selected in the printer options, and the page size is adjusted to accommodate them.

[fde101]

1 hour ago, Caradoc said:

how to take a document in page order, and place it in booklet format

This can be done with complex dedicated software, which is most likely how the print company would be handling it.

[Caradoc]

Yeah - this can be done using the print to pdf option (and MS Print to PDF), but when ticking the boxes to add bleed and crop marks it pushes the page image to the right and bottom even when the page size is custom modified to account for the bleed and crop marks. So instead of having a centered page image, with an all around bleed and crop marks, you get a margin at the top and left, with bleed and crop marks on those sides, but the page image pushed into the bottom and right, so there are no bleed or marks on those sides (it also trims the page image slightly).

 

If I print to a massive page size - like A3, it works fine. But If I enter a custom page size (adding the 18mm to account for 3mm bleed and crop marks), it doesn't work. 

Edited January 17, 2020 by Caradoc

[fde101]

4 hours ago, Caradoc said:

If I print to a massive page size - like A3, it works fine. But If I enter a custom page size (adding the 18mm to account for 3mm bleed and crop marks), it doesn't work. 

This piece of the puzzle sounds like it might belong in a bug report rather than a feature request?