In the past I have simply typed the pages for a 45 page booklet (page size 8.5 inches tall and 5.5 inches wide) and sent it to a printer. Their software arranged the printed pages correctly so that the final book was in page number order.
This year I will circulate this document as a pdf file ready to be printed as this kind of booklet. What template will allow me to do this?
Thanks
Mary Lou
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.13
In the Pages File menu, you will encounter Page Setup… . In choosing the Paper Size, you will want to select Manage Custom Sizes… from that menu.
Click the + symbol to add a new Paper size, and give it a meaningful name. Enter 5.5 in for the width, and 8.5 in for the height fields. Set any default margins here if you choose. Then click OK. Immediately, the Pages document will transform to these new dimensions.
Of no help in the future is that Pages refers to any custom page size as Other in the Documents panel, and ignores the custom name assigned in the Page Setup panel. And you may also find that your custom name is grayed out in the Pages Setup pane, and only shows Other, until you revisit the Manage Custom Sizes panel, select the custom size, and click OK again. Far from perfect.
You can now save your 5.5 x 8.5 document as a new Pages template (add to template chooser) and give it a mnemonic such as the following:
Pages templates do not do imposition, which is the custom reordering of pages with specialized software that your print vendor did previously for you.
I do not do booklet printing, so I suspect that your ordering may require a custom tool to do the ordering you require. I have run a four-page document as a booklet through Apple's print panel, and Adobe Acrobat Reader DC print panel, and have not found a combination that will print in the order you require. I could be overthinking this and making a mistake with the print panel.
If I am not wrong, then it may point to a purchaseable software (e.g. Create Booklet 2) solution from the Mac App Store to order fine tune the order of the booklet pages. That negates an individual making this work.
If I build this document with many numbered pages, will a user be able to print it to be assembled as a book (both sides printed)? This requires that the printer print page 3 behind 2 and 4 behind one.
Will it require skill on the part of the user to make this work?
Mary Lou
I didn't describe the problem correctly. Unless I can format the document as a booklet to be printed on 8.5 x 11 paper, there may not be any way to do this. In the past, I submitted my completed document in normal page order and the printer people had software which turned it into a document to be printed as a booklet.
I had hoped that one of the Pages book templates did this.
Mary Lou
Creating a book which will be numbered for printing
