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droog655321
Inspiring
September 20, 2023
Question

Laying out a book for Tête-bêche binding

  • September 20, 2023
  • 3 replies
  • 1868 views

I'm looking to create book like the old Ace Doubles Science Fiction paperbacks, where there are two front covers and each book is upside-down with pages in reverse order from the other. It's reversing the pages that's the problem. Can't do it automatically in Acrobat as they've removed the Reverse Pages optuion from their Action Wizard. Is there a way to do it in InDesign?

    3 replies

    James Gifford—NitroPress
    James Gifford—NitroPress
    Legend
    September 20, 2023

    I lean towards your method of creating two files, then merging them. Doing it all in one ID file is... so convoluted.

     

    You might want to find a printer or service bureau before committing too much work to these. Many, including KDP, won't accept or work with nonstandard layouts. I've seen many anguished wails from people who wanted to do it as a KDP paperback and were blocked.

     

    But yeah, I'm with Joel... nothin' like the old Ace doubles. I have  few here. Dell 10-centers, too. 🙂

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      droog655321Author
      Inspiring
      September 21, 2023

      James, I'll be working with IngramSpark, if I go this route. I've emailed asking them if they will do this. My worry is that their preflight AI will think it's an error and reject it. Assuming that's not the case, the other worry is that they will accidentally flip the covers when gluing them and I end up with both books having the wrong cover. We shall see.

      Robert at ID-Tasker
      Robert at ID-Tasker
      Legend
      September 21, 2023

      Hopefully, if you speak to humans - they'll be able to override poorly configured A.I. 

       

      Robert at ID-Tasker
      Robert at ID-Tasker
      Legend
      September 20, 2023

      Two separate INDD files, then combining PDFs - either in InDesign or Acrobat. 

       

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      droog655321Author
      Inspiring
      September 20, 2023

      Unfortunately, that appears to be PC only.

      Robert at ID-Tasker
      Robert at ID-Tasker
      Legend
      September 20, 2023

      If you are referring to ID-Tasker - yes, it's PC only. Unfortunately, JavaScript will never be able to offer such advanced functionality. Even plugins can't get much closer. 

       

      Joel Cherney
      Community Expert
      Joel CherneyCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      September 20, 2023

      Well, this post sure brings back some fond memories! Haven't seen an Ace Double in a decade or three.

       

      I can think of a few ways to pull this off. The easiest for you, I think, would be to use the Multipageimporter.jsx script. Take a look at the interface:

       

      Seems to me that if you have two 100-page SF novellas, you'd typeset the first one as normal in its own InDesign file, then add one hundred blank pages. Then set up your second novella in a separate InDesign file. Then place the second novella on p101-200 of the first file, while reversing page order and rotating 180 degrees. 

       

      If that doesn't work for you, I have two other options in mind that might work just as well, just with a bit more manual layout work. 

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        droog655321Author
        Inspiring
        September 20, 2023

        Thanks for your reply. The easiest thing might be to layout both books separately, where one of them is reverse ordered then create two PDFs. In Acrobat take the reverse-ordered pdf and rotate 180 degrees, then merge the PDFs into one file. I have to admit that I know next to nothing about using scripts. I've been using InDesign for twenty years and do everything manually. Just used to doing that. Still, I would appreciate some instruction as to this script, installing it, etc., as I am a babe in the woods with this stuff, and it appears that this is the only way to accomplish my task. Thanks again!

        Joel Cherney
        Community Expert
        Joel CherneyCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        September 20, 2023

        The easiest thing might be to layout both books separately, where one of them is reverse ordered then create two PDFs.

         

        Yep, you could do it that way. I'd make a reverse-ordered file by starting a right-to-left document, which I can do because I have the North African/Middle Eastern version of InDesign installed. If you don't, then it'd probably be equally as fast to teach you to install and use that script than it would be for you to install the Arabic version of InDesign (with English interface) for your backwards file. 

         

        Other options exist... for example, if you'd rather do everything manually, then you could lay out both books normally in InDesign, and then your reversed-book could have each frame rotated by 180 degrees, and then when you went to export your PDF for merging in Acrobat, you could export your pages in reverse order:

         

        That creates a backwards PDF for your merge in Acrobat. 

         

        But, if you wanted to use the script, here are the basic steps:

         

        1) Download that script from Github

        2) In Indesign, open up your Scripts panel Window -> Utilities -> Scripts

        3) In your Scripts panel, find you User scripts, then right-click and choose "Show in Explorer" (or I suppose "Finder" if you're on a Mac)

        4) That will spawn a window. You can drag the .jsx file you downloaded and drop it into the Scripts Panel folder.

        5) Then, you make your two normal novella-INDD-files and use the importer script to import one into the other, with page order reversed and 180 degree rotation.

         

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