printing perfect bound booklet 2-up on a page

@Jan Moscowitz  One of the companies I worked at, actually had a Xerox Docutech and it allowed us to print booklet styles. It even allowed to saddle-stitch it with a staple in the middle (think of a small annual report!). It was pretty cool. This was a few years ago, and we would print from Adobe InDesign.

Looking at your images, if it's only a 16 page document, you probably could just print as a saddle stitch. When I saw the words 'perfect bound,' right off the back, I thought you are printing an actual book (think of a paperback with a flat spine). Until, I saw the number of pages, and realize it's only 16-pages! Of course, with only 16 pages, you are eventually printing on 4 signatures (4 pages per signature) —simply, 4 pages on one sheet of paper. You could then tell the printer to saddle-stitch it, fold the paper and staple it for you. 

If the page documents is 8.5" x 11", if you are doing this in-house, check to see if your printer can accept 11"x17" paper size (tabloid size). This way, you can use 1 sheet of paper, and have page 4 and 1 on one side, and Page 2 and 3 on the other side. 

I did a test print on my home printer. And the 'print booklet' printed fine, on one sheet paper. I used a letter size print out for a test print on a Epson printer... so this is my set-up when I have to provide a 'blueprint' of a booklet. 

1.  File - Print Booklet 
   

    

2.  Click on Preview. For one side, page 1 (cover) and page 4 (back cover) will show. Odd number pages should always be on the right, and even number pages on the left side. This is what will show up when I print it up once I change a setting in the printer settings. Trust the setting
   
   

    

3.  For my 'Home' Printer, I need to click on Print Settings. Setup. And change to paper size (Although my printer can print 13" x 19",) I elected to do my test print on letter size, 8.5" x 11". I am printing on landscape mode (second icon) for this test print I have to scale to fit to fit both pages in. 
   
   

    

4. Click on Printer. Normally, I have the setting off, but for this process I have it turned on...it may give you a warning. That's ok...click OK
   

    

5.  Under Layout is a drop-down menu. Open that and select Two-Sided printing
   

    

6.  After selecting tw-side printer settings, I change the binding from Short-edge Binding because I want to be able to fold the paper in half and have the right-side page facing up. 
   
    

    

7.  Hit Print. And vøila! Printed on one sheet of paper, with 4 pages on it! Sweet! 
   
   *Note: If you are printing in house, just create a simple 4-page document as a test print. I just do simple text to speed the printing process to show you. Hope this helps! 
   
   **Note #2: Printing in-house compared to a commercial printer, will always not be the best because when you print on both sides, you may have some 'creep' when you fold the pages, in this case, you will have 4 sheets of paper folder in half which will be 8 pages. I used to have one bookmarked which I had normally used, but, I don't print as much anymore, but, you can try this one here...https://printgraphics.com.au/tools/calculator.

@Jan Moscowitz 

Quick question - why do you need to prepare PDF this way?

saving as a pdf is not supported. Really frustrating.

Hi @Jan Moscowitz , In order to create an imposed PDF you will need to Save a Postscript file and distill the .ps file to PDF via Distiller, and you also need to install the AdobePDF 9.0 PPD, which you can download here:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/fhnvventjc7vxpzzmft5f/AKwgMb_SlYYf5JUfSfpr2nk?rlkey=e7ruj0dh52vvwku98mqbmbqen&dl=0

The PPD needs to be installed in ⁨Applications⁩ ▸ ⁨Adobe InDesign 202X⁩ ▸ ⁨Presets⁩ ▸ ⁨PPDs⁩ ⁩ ▸ ADPDF9.PPD

The PPDs folder is case sensitive

The Adobe PDF 9.0 PPD lets you set any custom spread size:

PDF

I may be misreading your post, so ignore or correct anything I'm getting wrong —

I am not quite sure ID will print n-up booklet. I could be wrong, but all the booklet printing features I'm familar with print one booklet at a time, imposed as necessary for cutdown, stacking and stitching.

It's also not a good workflow to print booklet from ID to a PDF. Booklet printing at the desktop level involves single pages, sorted and impositioned for output in booklet order etc.

You can print booklet from InDesign, but it's not recommended; it just isn't a strong feature. The usual workflow is export to PDF pages, then use Acrobat Pro to print booklet — and I don't think it does n-up booklet printing, either.

It's also not necessary to do booklet printing for perfect binding. Perfect bind and most other office binding methods use a stack of flat sheets. I'm not sure there's anything to be gained from trying to create 4-page signatures (which would be pages 1-2-3-4 etc. anyway, not the sorted order of stacked/stittched booklet printing).

Some of this will have to do with what printer you're using and how it handles duplex print jobs.

And I assume you meant "2 sided" not "2 page perfect bound."

Maybe you can clarify your actual plans and workflow here?