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Chris  P.  Bacon
Inspiring
December 20, 2022
Question

Portable imposition software?

  • December 20, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 4259 views

If I want to print my magazines on A3 spreads on regular printers, then fold them and staple stitch them manually (maybe even laminate the covers manually), what portable imposition software should I use?

Digital press is something nobody can afford (at least not for mass production of magazines) and the issue with offset press is that you must order a lot to get a good price, so that's not good for travelers, because then will I drag a trailer of mags after me?

So I might attempt to make handmade magazines with hand made artefacts on it (thus raising the price of it), but I would only make say 50 a time, and then when I sold it I print an other fifty.

Offset press is nice, but it's definitely not good for travelers, at least not until your magazine is officially out on the market, and you have your official points of sales.

But again then that doesn't work well for digital nomads, not at all.

I tried print ond demand, and believe it or not I got price tags like 50 dollars for a single magazine, shipped locally - so that's not for magazines. Maybe for occasional brochures, etc but certainly not for magazines in production.

So because print on demand fails for magazines, I want to make my own print on demand system, that I want to use for my magazine business.

The printing price would be still much higher than offset press, but it doesn't require the logistics and storage and big amounts printed, and that also costs money and it's a hassle and it's a very flexible solution, so this would be still viable.

Is there any any portable imposition software or I have to build up my PDF manually in Acrobat from individual InDesign Pages?

Can I do the imposition in InDesign after I am done, to just reshuffle the pages for A3 print?

Even if my mags will be later officially distributed, I still want print on demand instead of offset, both for my eventual sellers and for my customers. So I might need to build my own print on demand system.

 

    

2 replies

James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
December 20, 2022

I think you have to recognize that imposition software falls to two ends of a wide spectrum: the "booklet" features for office-grade printing of slim booklets, without too many aspects of control, and the industry-grade stuff, which is usually tied to and optimized for a single press.

 

If there's anything in between — pro-level control and features, but generic for use with any office-grade printer — I can't bring one to mind.

 

BobLevine
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 20, 2022

Export a proper PDF and use Acrobat's booklet printing feature.

Chris  P.  Bacon
Inspiring
December 20, 2022

Let me try that out.

rob day
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 22, 2022

you don’t have to worry about the imposition requirements like creep

other than not having faces or other cutoff sensitive content on the spine right?

because it will be some cutoff, guaranteed, right?

That's why I was thinking to cut my spread size images in half and put them on separaate pages and adjust fr the creep, but I can't even see my bleed at the spine in InDesign, so that would be difficult.

You say bleed at the spine is cut off from the image on the other page, if it's a spine crossing image.

Does that mean guaranteed cutoffs at the spine?

I can see how it's difficult to get the spine right with images that cross the spine.

If we have distances like 5 mm for bleed, double that, that's 10 mm inaccuracy at the spine?

If that's true, then I really don't have to worry for the creep.

 


other than not having faces or other cutoff sensitive content on the spine right? because it will be some cutoff, guaranteed, right?

 

Nothing will get cutoff, the book is folded at the spine— a very small part of the image could get hidden in the binding it all depends on the accuracy of the imposition and the folding.That‘s why you don’t want to crossover small text.

 

Try printing your own impositions from Print Booklet, that might help you understand how a crossover gets imposed. If you look at the crossovers in my Print Booklet captures above you can see the crossover image is not getting cutoff, but the pages are being moved outward depending on where they are in the book