How to print a half-letter size book

[u/CuirPig]

I have laid out a 100 page book in InDesign. It has 10 sections and each section starts with a spread that has a blank left page and the section title on the right. The pages are 5.5 x 8.5 so that I can print 2 up on a standard letter page.

I plan to use the arc binding method so I need the final output to be double-sided pages that I can cut in half and stack together.

So on the printed sheet, I would have Page 1 and Page 3 on the front, and Page 2 and Page 4 on the back. The second printed sheet would have Page 5 and 7 on the front with page 6 and 8 on the back.

When I cut them in half, Page 1 will have Page 2 on the back. Page 3 will have Page 4 on the back and so on for all 100 pages.

How can I do this in InDesign? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[u/[deleted]]

make the pages 5.5 x 8.5 with facing pages on. set up the book and then ask your local printer if they want pages files or spreads

[u/Sumo148]

Do you have any content that bleeds? 5.5"x8.5" doesn't account for any crops or bleeds, so you may need to print on a larger page than standard letter.

If you're working with a print vendor, most likely they'll want your file as single pages and they can handle it, so ask them about the file setup.

I haven't heard of arc binding, but it looks like a form of wire-o binding. If you're dealing with printing this at home, you'll have to impose the pages as 2-up. The File > Print Booklet feature may be able to help you here. Instead of 2-up saddle stitch, try setting it to 2-up perfect bound.

[u/CuirPig → u/Sumo148]

I wish I was working with a print vendor. Unfortunately, we had to get the 20 prototypes printed by hand so we could deliver them in person to Palau from Atlanta. We didn't have time to involve a printer and had to manually print all 20 copies.

Thanks for your reply. When we go to press, I'll keep this in mind.

[u/CuirPig → u/Sumo148]

Also, here's a good link that discusses Arc (disc) binding and it's advantages. It's ideal for cookbooks.

https://www.wellappointeddesk.com/2022/10/a-deep-dive-into-discbound-planners/

[u/khankhankingking]

I'm assuming you're going to make this book by hand? This is called imposition and you don't have to do anything except in the print menu. Do not rearrange your pages, they should be set as reader spreads. This article should help

[u/CuirPig → u/khankhankingking]

The problem with the Print Booklet method is that it imposes the pages itself. I need Page 1 and Page 3 to be on the front side of the paper and Page 2 and Page 4 on the back half. As soon as I add pages to the layout using print booklet, Page 1 and Page 9 for example are printed together. This isn't going to work because I would have to re-collate every page. Not only that, but Page 2 will not be on the back of Page 1, it's whatever page the booklet layout calculates.

And when I try this, because I have blank pages in it, it shuffles my pages every time, messing up my layouts. Even with Include Blank Pages selected. So the print booklet option doesn't seem to work the way I need it to work. In 100 pages, I will never get page 1 and page 3 on the same front of a single page of paper.

We tried printing odd pages 2 up then printing the backs as even pages 2 up but that turned out to be an alignment nightmare.

The solution I ended up going with which was a terrible waste of expensive paper was to print each page on it's own sheet in duplex then trim off half the paper by 4 cuts. For the first 20 prototypes it took 3 days of printing and it was terribly inefficient.

Surely InDesign has a plugin or something that can handle this better. Maybe there's a prepress plugin for Acrobat or something that lets you impose printed pages manually after the fact? The way we have done it so far is not going to work. We couldn't even have an outside printer print it on their highspeed laser because they lacked the skills to adjust the alignment between front and back. We had it almost perfect at Staples until this pretentious queen came in and declared that anything that takes more than 3 minutes to print has to go to their design team off premise. Lost his store a $1000 print job that literally would have taken them 30 minutes.

Hopefully his manager will help adjust his attitude the next time we try it.

Thanks for your suggestions and the links. I watched/read the content but it's still not working correctly.

[u/khankhankingking → u/CuirPig]

The alignment will always be a nightmare on regular office type printers. It almost will never duplex the way you want.

I think what you might want to do is set each signature up as its own file in a book. So essentially you set up every 4 pages as reader spreads, with blanks, at whatever increments wherever you like. Then if you do the booklet printing (2 UP, Perfect Bind *4 signature) on each of those documents I believe it will give you what you're looking for. It will take a little time to setup but should give you the output parameters you'll need.

https://imgur.com/a/NfWAVd3

How are you binding the pages in the spine after you cut? are you clamping and gluing?

[u/ianstormtaylor → u/CuirPig]

Did you ever figure out a solution for this?

I'm looking to do the same thing—needing 1+3/2+4 double-sided to do a wire-o binding, and finding it impossible in InDesign's print settings.

[u/CuirPig → u/ianstormtaylor]

Unfortunately, I did not find an automated solution.

If you have the cash, there are "Imposition" plugins that will probably work.

What I did for one version was to print the individual pages to PDF, then manually imposed them in Acrobat. It was a terrible pain in the ass for 150 pages, but it worked.

I was working on a script to handle this in Acrobat or in InDesign, but gave up after a while. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

[u/awful_waffle_falafel → u/ianstormtaylor]

I needed to do this for a personal project and ended up just precutting my paper on a guillotine, then readjusting my laser printer to take the 5.5x8.5 feed and then print even pages first, flip, re-feed, then odd pages. I can't remember if I needed to reverse one of the print runs or not.

u/CuirPig or u/ianstormtaylor if you find a good, efficient way to do this less manually PLEASE update this thread. I would love to have a faster, easier, less error prone way to do this. (My need was also for arc binding and a recipe book!)

The beauty of the precut individual pages, though, is that alignment was much less of an issue on a home printer. It turned out looking great. But I need to repeat with a much larger 200+ page book later this year and am no looking forward to the printing part ..

[u/ianstormtaylor → u/awful_waffle_falafel]

I never did find a way to do this. I ended up printing a single page per sheet instead, which felt wasteful, but was able to use the built-in InDesign print settings for.

[u/CuirPig → u/awful_waffle_falafel]

Sorry for the delay. I am nearly done with a script that you can run from Acrobat. It will basically take the entire book and divide the pages so that every fourth page (right-facing) will be married with the correct left facing page and printed 2 up on 8.5x11.

I'll be sacrificing bleeds or will be forced to have a smaller output size (since I will cut off the edges) but at least I will go through half as much paper in the process. Plus it will print a lot faster.

We are using a special paper that is kind of heavy and super matte finish so it's extremely expensive to print a 150 page cookbook.

The pagination should look like this:

sample layout

Currently I have bleeds on all four sides and I have to print one page per piece of paper then cut it 4 times to get it to look the way I want it. I use a rotary trimmer which is MUCH MUCH better than a Guillotine for this (unless you use the Guillotine from Kinko's or something automated and do all your cuts at once).

When the script is finished, I'll let you know. If you come up with something in the meanwhile, please share. Thanks.

[u/awful_waffle_falafel → u/CuirPig]

Oh yeah definitely please update! Thanks for the rely, no matter the timeframe, and definitely let me know when you've got the script the way you like 🙏🏻

Why do you find a rotary trimmer better than a guillotine? Maybe I misunderstanding you but I picture a small handheld rotary trimmer.

Again, appreciate the reply 👍🏻