Date: Fri, 2 Apr 2010 02:27:57 +0200 From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> To: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Tool to produce A5 booklet from A4 pages PS / PDF Message-ID: <20100402022757.ec5f6598.freebsd@edvax.de>
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In order NOT to try to reinvent the wheel, I'd like to ask if anyone knows a tool that does helps to produce a printable and foldable booklet from A4 pages. I'm searching for a tool that scales down and reorders A4 pages (from a document, usually PS or PDF) in a way that the result can be printed with a duplex printer (content on both sides of the paper sheet) and then be folded in the middle in order to get a "book" (or let's better call it a booklet) in A5 format. Additionally, the booklet can be stapled where it has been folded (using the proper mechanical tool). Of course, this just seems useful for standard A paper formats (A4 / A5) which keep the aspect ratio sqrt(2) (or nearly 1.414:1) even after folding or combining: A4 +------++------+ | || | | A5 || A5 | | || | +------++------+ Illustration here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/A_size_illustration.svg Depending on the "real" page number, it would require to completely re-order and rotate (90 or 270 degree) the contained pages, depending where they will appear on the result paper. For example, page 1 needs to be placed on page 1, top, rotated 270 degrees, while the lase page also has to be placed on page 1, bottom, rotated 270 degrees. Page 2 will be on page 2 (which is the rear side of page 1), top, rotated 90 degrees... and now my imaginary force is failing. :-) All pages have to be scaled down to 50% of their original size, of course. In ideal case, the number of pages to be processed this way is modulo 4, because 4 pages go to one sheet (two per side). So basically, I'm searching for a program that does the renumbering and rotation magic, provided PS or PDF files as input, and also as output. What tool can you suggest to do so? Sidenote: Since my system crashed in July 2008, I can't access my home directory anymore (inode missing, content still on disk). I wrote a program that does all this for image files as input - creates a LaTeX document that includes the properly rotated and scaled images so you can print from a stack of images and result in a happy little booklet - jpg2tex, pdflatex, lpr. I don't want to do this again... :-( -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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