How do I create a "centerfold" or bookfold layout

Inovich, because you've already set up your pages to be "two-up" on a landscape page from within FM, in my experience it's highly unlikely that any of the imposition software will be able to process the job, because for all intents and purposes that is  just a single landscape page -- not two pages.

The only way I know that you'll be able to have any sort of correct imposition from software is to redo your file as a single page, in other words where only a single page number appears on each individual page.

The best way to do this is to

1. make a backup of your current doc, of course
   
2. create a brand new FM document, using 8.5x11 pages. This is a single page only. Don't worry about the actual physical page size being bigger than your eventual target of half of a landscape page, because Acrobat or the imposition software can handle that later. Set your document to be double-sided. Set the master page text frames and headers/footers to the correct sizes. SAVE this file as a different filename (e.g. BlankTemplate.fm).
   
3. Copy the BlankTemplate.fm to another new filename (e.g. Working.fm)
4. Open your original FM document. In  Working.fm do File > Copy > Formats and bring in all of the formats EXCEPT the page layouts. Save this file as your new version.
5. In your new version, leave the pagination as it is, from first page to last page. The imposition software working on the PDF file will "slice and dice" these pages to rearrange them according to the requirements for duplex printing on a different sheet size (landscape).
6. When you make your PDF you may see differences in how the page size appears, or whether the page appears trimmed down to be 7 x 8.5, depending on what versions of FM and Acrobat you're using and on what options you have in your Distiller setup. The printing company will usually be able to adjust these.

While I don't disagree with Derek's take on how Reader works, I'd be really surprised if that was the method used by a commercial printer....

If I was prepping the document, I'd just produce a PDF using the Press job option, which takes care of the prep work, and send that along to the printer.

I WOULD NOT mess with imposition software (to set up the pages) because unless you're in a very unusual postion, you don't know enough about the printer's work flow, software, and processes to guess what the optimal setup is. You're paying the printer to do this, so I'd suggest that you produce the highest quality PDF possible and then get out of the way and let the printer do the printing. If you do imposition work, you stand a good chance of making the wrong choices for the printer's workflow and may end up having to pay them to correct your mistakes.

***If you have to do imposition work, this is best done in Acrobat, not Frame. There are a number of imposition packages out there -- Quite Imposing used to be a favorite of a lot of people, but I don't know what the current choices are (because I let the printer set things up to suit the workflow.

Art

The process that you are talking about is called imposition. Besides the limited functionality for booklet printing that Derek suggests in Acrobat, there are dedicated applications that will impose PDFs for you in all sorts of layouts. Look up Quite Imposing, PDFSnake, ClickBook, or FinePrint for Windows-based moderately-priced tools.

You don't need to do anything special in FrameMaker; the necessary functionality is built into Acrobat Reader.

Just print your book to a PDF, open it with Acrobat Reader and select Page handling > Page Scaling > Booklet Printing.

Acrobat automagically scales pages, adds empty pages and everything! Be sure to set up your printer to flip along short edge.

You can also combine this with Print to File to make a PDF with the correct page pairing. Try it and see!

--- Derek