Bifold brochure page numbering
I am working on a bifold duplex center-stapled brochure and wonder if Pages can handle the complex page numbering and page print order required.
To clarify: each sheet of paper is to be 8.5x11 (standard US letter paper) printed on both sides. Each side is to consist of a left page and right page printed 2-up (i.e. 50% scale) where each individual page is originally formatted for US letter.
Thinking through how to assemble it, the first, outermost sheet would have the back cover on side 1 left, the front cover on side 1 right, the first content page on side 2 left, and the last content page on side 2 right. If N is the total number of original pages, counting the front cover as page 1 and the back cover as page N, then there are N/4 sheets to be printed on both sides. The inner-most sheet would have FrontLeft = N - 2(N/4) + 2; FrontRight = 2(N/4) -1; BackLeft = 2(N/4); and BackRight = N - 2(N/4) + 1. The scheme for any sheet S (starting from 1 for the outside sheet) is obtained by substituting S for the (N/4) term in those equations.
I have diagrammed how each sheet would be laid out, i.e. which original page would go on which side of which sheet, and of course I can arrange the whole document manually, including putting the page numbers in the footer manually. But does Pages have a way to do all this automatically? Or perhaps does the copy machine at Staples have a mode that can take the original N single-sided pages and copy & collate them as required?