TEMPLATE A6 Booklet layout for text test printing

[David Battistella]

 

I am looking for an 8, 16, 32,64 AFPublisher page layout template to be able to run some test prints before sending off to the printer. My printer is NOT Duplex so I have to do two passes.

Goal.

I want to fold the A4 sheets with 4 A6 pages paginated to be able to print the booklet as a mockup to review hard copy for text corrections etc.. 

I can place the pages in the file and print the A4 sheets on my printer. 

Thanks, 

David

 

[Oufti]

8 hours ago, David Battistella said:

I want to fold the A4 sheets with 4 A6 pages paginated

If you print 8 pages signatures and stack them to make 16, 24, 32… pages books, you could reproduce this schema on a double page spread, filled with picture frames (half of them being rotated) that you populate with a PDF of your document exported as single pages. Finally you print odd pages and even pages consequently, fold and stack them.

Is it what you desire?

[David Battistella]

On 3/19/2025 at 7:11 PM, Oufti said:

If you print 8 pages signatures and stack them to make 16, 24, 32… pages books, you could reproduce this schema on a double page spread, filled with picture frames (half of them being rotated) that you populate with a PDF of your document exported as single pages. Finally you print odd pages and even pages consequently, fold and stack them.

Is it what you desire?

 

yes!

 

That is what I was looking for. 

 

I hoped that I could create this easliy with the BookletCreator App on Mac OS. but it seems more suited to printing A5 on A4 Paper. Recto Verso. 

[Oufti]

Yes, it's only for a single signature fold in-folio (4 pages/sheet), not in-quarto as you would like. 

If you were to collate multiple in-folio signatures, you could use the imposition calculator I posted here but for in-quarto signatures, I'm afraid you'd have to create your own template and fill it by placing manually PDF pages. 

 

[David Battistella]

Thank you!

I was able to print this, but not yet able to get my head around the concept of doing the signatures for the whole book.

I am on Mac OSX

Here is what I have tried.

I export single frame a6 pdf with 56 pages

Process those pages in Booklet creator app.

That generates a PDF file with 8xA5 pages ( but I want to print 4 Pages per side on A4 and fold and then cut the one edge). When I try to print those files and impose at the printing stage the page order is all wrong. Which means I would have to edit individual PDF files. (there has to be a better way)

So I asked GROK and it gave me the imposition table (attached).  

But still. This is a simple math and orientation problem that should be fairly easy to put into an application, but the apps available seem somehwhat overpriced. 

[Oufti]

This imposition table from GROK is also for in-folio booklets: since there are 14 sheets for 56 pages, it's again 4 pages/sheet — which is easy to do because there are no orientation changes. In-quarto is a bit more demanding, as you noticed.

Here is a "brouillon" (I forget the name in English and I'm in a hurry) I have in my cupboard for such a template you'd use, alack it's for in-octavo. It's not really usable, and certainly not for your use case, but it can give you a better idea of what I meant…

Imposition 16p??.afpub

To know which page numbers are on each sheet, take the schema I posted above and add 8 (16, 24, 32,…) to each number.

[David Battistella]

Very generous. 

Thank you so much. There is a lot to understand to this process and a bit of math and a Jigsaw puzzle as well. 

 

David