SOLVED: printing A5 pdf as A5 booklet

[Martin1001]

I see that, having created 12 landscape A5 pages in LibreOffice, I can continue with LibreOffice to print them on three landscape A4 sheets and then fold to make a 12-page A5 booklet.

But that's with an .odt file. In the past I've always found it best to print from a pdf since word-processor files tended to get distorted in the printing process.

Has anyone used software from Software Manager that, for a 12-page A5 pdf, will print on A4 to make a 12-page A5 booklet?

(BTW XReader can't seem manage it with my A5 pages are in landscape. It either places one above the other on A4 portrait, or rotates them through 90 deg before putting them side by side on A4 landscape.)

[Cosmo.]

What is a wp file and what do you mean by distortion?

[Hoser Rob]

Wordpress?

[Bolle1961]

Or Word Perfect

[Dan-cer]

I used the solution that I found today in libreoffice forum:

Format your pages in A4 format. Then you can print the brochure directly via the print routine of LO. The pages are then automatically scaled to A5 format.

Advantage:
The individual pages can be edited further.
They would not be if you printed them using the method you intended.

[Martin1001]

What is a wp file and what do you mean by distortion?

Sorry, wp=word-processor

[Martin1001]

I used the solution that I found today in libreoffice forum:

Format your pages in A4 format. Then you can print the brochure directly via the print routine of LO. The pages are then automatically scaled to A5 format.

Advantage:
The individual pages can be edited further.
They would not be if you printed them using the method you intended.

Yes, that's what I usually do, but this time I happened to create them in A5 landscape. Now, as I discovered, LibreOffice can handle that with an .odt file, or convert to .pdf, but what I'd like to do is find a way of obtaining the booklet from the .pdf.

See also the edited first email with a comment about XReader.

[Martin1001]

... and what do you mean by distortion?

Bits e.g. at the bottom of one page would appear at the top of the following page. That is, the careful individual page design is lost.

[Dan-cer]

In the same LO forum thread I have linked above it is mentioned the app "Pdf-Booklet".
Have a look here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfbooklet/

[Cosmo.]

Fine, now after 2 attempts we got the right meaning for wp. Is my assumption right, that your wp is named Writer? Clear words and names have really big advantages, (nearly) everybody understands it correctly.

Bits e.g. at the bottom of one page would appear at the top of the following page. That is, the careful individual page design is lost.

This sounds, as if the paper size in the page formatting settings and the size of the physical paper do not match.

[Martin1001]

Fine, now after 2 attempts we got the right meaning for wp. Is my assumption right, that your wp is named Writer? Clear words and names have really big advantages, (nearly) everybody understands it correctly.

Bits e.g. at the bottom of one page would appear at the top of the following page. That is, the careful individual page design is lost.

This sounds, as if the paper size in the page formatting settings and the size of the physical paper do not match.

I used to work where they had several word-processing programs available. The problem was common with all of them. To avoid it, documents were converted to pdf, and then printed. I think to avoid such problems is why pdf format was devised. Of course, since the problem was often met, care was taken over paper size and specs. It's 20 years since I last had to print booklets. Perhaps things have changed. Does anyone know whether LibreOffice converts to pdf and then sends the pdf to the printer. Has anyone printed booklets directly from .odt and checked the top and bottom of the printed pages?

[Dan-cer]

LO doesn't send a PDF to printer.
Once you have a PDF document, LO is out of the picture.
Have you looked at the PDFbooklet app yet?
It seems to be able to do exactly what you need.
Here is the link again: https://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfbooklet/

[Cosmo.]

You can export a LO document to PDF - or you can check, where your problem lies. A quick look into the page format settings is not so hard and looking, how big the used paper really is, can also not be a problem. I assume, a simple ruler is supposedly in every household.

[brian_p]

Assuming you have a PDF that satisfies you, a booklet may be produced with

Code: Select all

cupsfilter -m application/vnd.cups-pdf input.pdf -o booklet > booklet.pdf

and then printed.

[brian_p]

LO doesn't send a PDF to printer.

LO always produces a PDF to send to the printer. Otherwise, what does it send?

[Martin1001]

LO doesn't send a PDF to printer.

LO always produces a PDF to send to the printer. Otherwise, what does it send?

Thank you. That was the key, suggesting that the problems that existed in the past may no longer exist. I set up a series of increasingly complex .odt files with each page created in A5 format, then printed straight from LibreOffice. It worked, two A5 pages printed each side of A4. Folding them gave the required A5 booklet.

There is no necessity (if using LibreOffice) to create an A4 .odt document with two pages on each side of the A4.

All that needed to be input in the print dialogue was

Print > Page Layout > Brochure
Include > Back sides > OK
Turn paper (the way to do this might depend on the printer being used)
Print > Page Layout > Include > Front sides > OK

It couldn't be simpler. SOLVED.