Any way to impose an INDB without Imposer?

[A***@adobeforums.com]

Hey, folks! I suspect the answer to this is "no," But I'm curious anyway. Is there a path I could take to impose my InDesign book, and all of its respective documents, into a 2-up saddle stich PDF layout, or am I staring right into the brick wall that is InBooklet SE's feature limit?

Perhaps...is it at all possible to take said documents and export the book to a PDF, then reconstitute the PDF in saddle stitched format such that the 11x17 2-up saddle stiched spreads could be stretched (squished?) to fit (disproportionately) onto 8.5x11 sheets? (As mentioned, don't worry about aspect ratio...it's not a problem)

I have a suspicion I will be directed to the Acrobat forums in the very near future, wherein lies the answer to my problems.

[Robert Tkaczyk]

Export whole book to PDF and on share.studio.adobe.com you can find few
scripts which will do the rest of the work :)

robin

[A***@adobeforums.com]

Scripts for InDesign, I assume? Also, any good leads? I'm not terribly certain of what to search for once there ;)

[P***@adobeforums.com]

Just to satisfy my curiosity, why do you need to do this?

Aside from Robert's suggestion, you might also consider exporting the book to PDF, then placing that into a single new document and using Dave Saunders' imposition script to shuffle the pages around for you. You can then either print the spreads or make a new PDF, scaling it along the way if you like.

[A***@adobeforums.com]

The use of this would be in converting one of our documents, a comprehensive flight manual, into the standard size used aboard aircraft at a fast pace. Specifically, each page is 5.5x8.5, or half of a landscaped 8.5x11. The options we have are...print the spreads in full quantity, cut, and then manually sort them out later (upwards of 300 pages per manual), or print, cut, and plop the two stacks on top of one another. Given that this may need to be done for as many as ten manuals at a time means anything worth even a couple of minutes adds up.

The other issue I'm seeing is that right now, we run as an INDB file for the book, split into anywhere from 4 to 19 sections. It does not seem as if many of the scripts (or...any, for that matter) that I have encountered seem to work with this.

[P***@adobeforums.com]

So you print these in-house in small quantity?

I think I'd look seriously at re-importing the PDF into a new document. If you pay a visit to the scripting forum someone can probably even give you some help with automating the import of scaled pages for conversion to 5.5 x 8.5 sheets, then either run InBooklet or Dave's script to impose before you print it out.

Peter

[A***@adobeforums.com]

Yes, all printed and bound locally.

Thanks for the input, though. I'll probably head over there tomorrow when time is more plentiful. But thanks for the lead! I'll post back with results, good or bad.

[A***@adobeforums.com]

Now here's a question worth following up with...

My attempts to mass-load the PDFs into InDesign have failed. I only get manual placement and cascade, neither of which make my job any easier. Am I missing a hotkey/modifier?

[P***@adobeforums.com]

There's a script on exchange:
<http://share.studio.adobe.com/axAssetDetailSubmit.asp?aID=10994>

I haven't used it myself, but it's been around a long time and gets great reviews. Note the instructions in the review to update one line for use in CS2.

As I said, I think you might find someone on the scripting forum to help you import and scale in a single step.

Peter

[Robert Tkaczyk]

miniImpos - for imposition (can't rescale)
http://adobescripts.pl/search.php?query=Impos&action=results

BuildCatalog - for place PDFs and scale them (can't impose)
http://adobescripts.pl/search.php?query=makecatalog&action=results

robin

[A***@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for the links, guys. They've been a real help and we're now on the right path. I'm working on a post to the scripting gurus, so that should go nicely! Your help is unbelievably appreciated, as I'm heading out on the right track now, and all is wonderful with the world.

[P***@adobeforums.com]

I've just tried playing with the script that I linked to. It seems to work fine for files up to around 50 pages, but it's been cranking away for about an hour on a 156 page file with no sign of the second dialog. If you use this script, you might want to export and place your chapters separately to keep the script from choking.

Windows is reporting both that ID is not responding and that it is using about 50% of CPU usage, so I have a feeling I've gone into endless loop. I'll give it a bit more time before giving up.