setting up to print on 11x17 paper

The easiest way is to use Cocoa Booklet to create a booklet with any number of pages (best in a multiple of 4).

For a folded tabloid-size booklet create your Pages document in Letter-size as normal & then Export the Pages document to a PDF. Launch Cocoa Booklet & open its Preferences. In Paper Size set the Paper Format to “Personnalisé” with the Width 17 x Height 11 (measuring unit is set in a drop-down menu at the lower left of this preference window. Leave the default margins. In the Destination preference, select Yes for Add a suffix? to avoid overwriting your original PDF & click Save. The choices in the Options preferences are all left unchecked for your tabloid-size document. Then drag the PDF to the icon of Cocoa Booklet to will create a new PDF in booklet form.

Should you ever decide to do the layout yourself, rather than use CocoaBooklet, be sure the layout is

#4:#1
#2:#3

Walt

Search in the Pages '08 forum (search on "imposition") for the many times this process has been detailed.

Remember to always make up a dummy of the brochure by just getting the size of paper you want to use, folding it up, numbering the pages and unfolding it again. this clarifies most of the issues you will encounter to do with positioning.

I know I'm late to this discussion, but I'm interested: Is there a template, or a way, to actually format an 11x17 project in pages? All printers want the 11x17, and to use CocoaBooklet decreases the quality of the document. I'd rather just do it first in 11x17 in pages, if there's a way. Is there?

Not "All printers want the 11x17". 95% of this planet is wisely metric.

Irregardless of that, there are several routes to achieving what I imagine you want which is imposed multiple page layouts.

As I recommended above, search on the word Imposition and see the many detailed solutions outlined previously.

No 1 will be that printers do not want you to try and impose this yourself as chances are you do not know what you are doing (and seeing you are asking this) you will stuff it up. Most printers have the necessary software to take your individual pages and impose them exactly the way they need, not what you think they need.

Actually, that's not true. All the printers in my area will not touch my product unless I submit it in 11x17 format. They will NOT take the 8.5x11 sheets and place them in the proper order. I've been doing this for awhile; I know what the product needs to look like and what I need to do. I just can't get pages to do it!

I gather you are using Instant Printers. Those guys who do quickie, cheap, business cards, stationery on small offset printers.

You set the size for printing in Mac OSX in:

+Menu > File > Print Setup… > "Tabloid"+

I am metric and this was the closest I found to your size, assume it is the right one.

Once you have your page size set, it comes down to what you want to put on it.

For that we need to know the number of pages and how you are going to print and fold it. It merely becomes a mechanical method of laying out the pages in the right order and orientation (some may have to be rotated upside down).

You can output your document to actual size pages and assemble the pdfs in the Tabloid size document for the printer.

I suggest you take a Tabloid sheet of paper and fold it up to make your booklet. Mark the page number on each leaf with an underscore under the page number so you know which side is down. Then unfold it and you have a plan of how the pages go.