Text box layout order problem

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Level 1

4 points

Text box layout order problem

I am trying to create a 16 page saddle-stitched (stapled) booklet with 4 1/4" by 5 1/2" pages: one quarter the size of an 8.5 x 11 page. I would therefore like to print them on letter sized paper: 4 book pages to a side, 8 pages to the "signature" (to use a printing term), then fold, staple and trim. I am trying to connect the text boxes so the copy flows text box to text box from pages 2 through 15, with 1 text box per page.

To get the pages to layout properly for the booklet, these linked text boxes need to bounce among the letter-sized pages. For example on the first letter size printed page booklet pages 13, 4, 16 and 1 print, and on the next letter size page booklet pages 3,14, 2 and 15 print. The other signature contains pages 9, 8,12,5 and 7,10, 6,11. As I try to connect the text box on booklet page 1 to page 2 to page 3 to to page 4 so the copy flows correctly, Pages is not allowing me to put them in that order. Its logic, apparently, is that you can't bounce back and forth around printed pages with the order of text boxes, but rather the last box of the previous page connects to the first box on the on the following page. You can edit box order within an individual page freely but not box order across pages.

Is there an alternative to achieve this layout through working with booklet sized pages, and after creating them having Pages prepare them for printing in 8 page signatures?

Posted on Aug 26, 2018 9:53 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

PeterBreis0807

Level 8

41,196 points

Aug 26, 2018 1:14 PM in response to PTboy

You did not mention which version of Pages but given the problem, I assume Pages 7.1.

Pages ‘09 lets you link the Textboxes in whatever order you want, Pages 7.1 insists you link them in the page order, indicating that the programmers seem to think that is a good idea. As with a long list of other annoyances in Pages 5, 6, 7.

The way around that is to create the document in page order on quarter Letterhead size paper, print to PDF then drag out the individual PDF page thumbnails in Preview and drag those into a second Pages document in the imposed order.

This is the better method anyway as you will need to rotate the pages to the folded positions.

I assume you are printing this on a desktop printer, you will get a few nasty surprises if you try this on a commercial press.

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