Can't export a Letter-Half photo zine using Print Booklet and need direction

[trina24758715s254]

I can't tell if its my design or there is a setting wrong when I use Print booklet. I made an 18 page photo zine, Letter-half, meant to be two-sided saddle stitched/stapled, by a professional print shop. Every time I go to print booklet, the orientation is off, my imnages are cropped and I keep losing the text on the last page. There is only text on the cover and last page. My printer wants a pdf, from Print Booklet, so all the pages are matched correctly (imposition) for them to print it out and then staple. Another issue I am having is once when I did Print Booklet it put blank pages in, which makes no sense either. In my mind, p1 and p18 should be on the same spread, so that when it prints out, it can be folded in half and stapled together. So it's an orientation issue, and a page numbering issue. Also, I need a pdf, so is the best way to export to PostScript file through Print Booklet and then export that to a PDF? 

[Laubender]

Hi Trina,

you have 18 pages and you want to print or export them to how many sheets of paper?

4 pages on each sheet?

Then you need 20 pages in your InDesign document, not 18 pages for 5 sheets of paper.

Two empty pages plus the 18 pages you already have.

I assume, that the two empty pages are for the cover. Second cover page and third cover page.

Provide the empty pages in your InDesign document and this should work.

The order of pages in a facing-pages document must be:

Cover 1 Your title page

Cover 2 (empty)

16 pages of contents

Cover 3 (empty)

Cover 4 Your back cover

Also see into the script BookletImpositionPB.jsx by Rob Day that would do a new document with InDesign pages placed in the right imposition order. A PDF will be exported from the imposed InDesign document with a PDF Export preset you can select.

Booklet printing in Indesign
rob day, Oct 07, 2021

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/booklet-printing-in-indesign/m-p/12438055#M44796...

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

[maxwithdax · Accepted solution]

Your booklet page count must be divisible by 4 in order for the booklet to setup correctly. So 16 or 20 but not 18.

[Peter Spier · Accepted solution]

Also, if you plan on using Print Booklet to print to PDF you will need the ADPDF9.ppd printer description file to get Print Booklet to set up the pages correctly. You can find a download link for itr at https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/kb/add-acrobat-ppd.html