Exporting a saddle-stitch booklet from an InDesign file with more than one master page

[Julius B.]

Hello. I'm working on a file that needs to be exported as a saddle stitch booklet. I looked up on the process, followed every instruction and everything went well, but when the pdf was created all its pages were messed up because InDesign for some reason created extra blank pages upon export. I checked everything thoroughly and made sure the page count is correct (divisible by four) and after some trial-and-error I figured out that the reason is because I was using two master pages for the book. My temporary workaround is by applying the most used master page design on the entire book and manually pasting over the pages with the design of the other master, but is there an actual process to properly export the booklet with multiple master pages applied on the document?

[James Gifford—NitroPress · Accepted solution]

Multiple Parent pages (the name was changed about a year ago) should not affect proper page layout in and of themselves, unless they are of different sizes. Unless you've done something really odd with the Parent pages, this is probably not the cause of the problems.

But the universal advice here is not to use InDesign's booklet printing/export feature. It's fussy and unreliable. Export the document to PDF with linear pages, and use Acrobat's booklet features instead.

That said, the usual second comment is that unless you are going to print this on a local/office printer, you should not need to do imposition (as this page-ordering process is called). Most printers accept book/booklet/brochure projects as linear pages, and use their press software (RIPs) to sort the pages for optimal printing given their master page size, bindery processes, etc.

If you have a printer requesting a file in booklet page order... you might want to find another printer. It's something of a flag that they don't know what they're doing, or are using very outdated procedures.

But if exporting to PDF doesn't solve your basic problem, give a little more detail on your Parent page and document setup and why you think that's causing the booklet/imposition problems.

[Julius B.]

Thank you for the response. Upon further testing, I found an option in the Print Setting to "print blank pages" which I have left unchecked the entire time. After enabling it the exported booklet pdf didn't have any more issues.

Sadly I am not in the position to make decisions for the client. I know I shouldn't be doing this in the first place, but admittedly I am still not entirely familiar with InDesign. I'm taking these endeavors as opportunities to learn more about the software, as consolation if nothing else.

Thank you for taking the time to providing the info and insight to guide me to the right direction. Have a good day

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Yes, if a client asks, and all that.

But... unless they are printing this in-house and want a PDF they can simply dump to an office printer, it's still concerning that they want an imposed print file. Any commercial printer will want to do their own imposition, to suit their press, the print sheet size, their own bindery processes, etc.

If you can gently communicate on this point — find out why they want the imposed file — you might be able to earn some pro points by advising them that a better workflow might be, well, better for everyone concerned.

[Julius B.]

All I know is that the company I'm working for has been doing business with this printer for years. However, this is the first time they have made such a request. My guess is that they have someone else dealing with the proofing stage and is printing the booklets separately, just as you have surmised, for this purpose. I'm still required to deliver the finalized packaged files in the end, so I have faith that they're using the prepress ready pdfs for actual mass production.

[rob day]

All I know is that the company I'm working for has been doing business with this printer for years. However, this is the first time they have made such a request.

Sounds like a miscommunication—as the designer it’s unlikely that you know all the press and binding variables needed to provide the correct imposition. Do they really want a 2-up imposition—is the press sheet that small? What’s the sheet thickness—do they need a creep adjustment and how much?

[Julius B.]

I don't think that's the issue at all. The variables are already defined as early as setting up the InDesign document for layout. We follow the standard bleed and crop settings, etc. We send the entire package files so all the necessary materials and information are provided to them. As I said earlier, I believe this is just one person handling the proofing and printing the proof copies by themselves. Although, even that is a a bit farfetched but I can't think of any other reason. Try as I might, I don't have the authority to influence any decisions on the printing side of things.

[rob day]

As I said earlier, I believe this is just one person handling the proofing and printing the proof copies by themselves

Then why don’t they proof using Print Booklet?

The bleed and crop settings don’t have anything to do with imposition. Unless the output is to some low end printer/copier (e.g. Kinkos) the imposition wouldn’t be 2-up—it would more likely be imposed for the full press sheet, which Print Booklet can’t do:

And if there are more than 8 pages there would be some creep adjustment. How are you coming up with the Creep setting?

[Julius B.]

Then why don’t they proof using Print Booklet?

That is exactly what I did, I gave them a pdf file that I generated using the Print Booklet function. That's why I suspect it's only for the person doing the proofing. They didn't ask for anything specific beyond that, so I just kept everything else in their defaults. I didn't have to set up creep because like I said I don't believe they will use the booklet version in actual production anyway.

[Jumpenjax]

Send this through package and it will save as a pdf too. You have the chance to change the pdf quality when you do this too.  .