printing booklet

[judeela]

hi-

I'm having trouble printing a booklet. I printed a copy this morning. Everything was great, but I decided to change some fonts. When I tried to print again, I ran into two issues. 1. It's only printing 6 out of the 12 pages. It just stops after the first six pages. 2. it will no longer "scale to fit". I did make the files the size of the page that I wanted, but for some reason, it's telling me to fit on the 8 1/2 x 11 paper, I need to print at 92 percent. So, now the page numbers and top lines are cut off. I tried multiple times, different printers, and each time same problems. Again, it printed just fine in the morning, and several hours later, these problems. It's the strangest thing. Any ideas/advice are much appreciated!

Another thing- I switched over to using a Mac today. My first Mac, so I've got a little bit of a learning curve there. This booklet was made on a Mac by a different person, though.

[Mike Witherell]

Try exporting the document to IDML; then open that IDML file in order to reconstitute the file as a new file (that you would save and name version 2). Try the new file: see if the problem goes away.

Print from a PDF; not straight out of InDesign. To make a PDF, be sure to File > Export > to PDF.

[judeela]

thank you! I have never used the idml feature; that is great to know about! It didn't fix the issue, though. I don't know what is going on. Strangest problem.

[Derek Cross]

Are you printing on your desk-top printer for proofing purposes prior to finalising for commercial litho printing?

Which version of InDesign and operating system?

[judeela]

well, the first was for proofing. Now, I am going to print to take to have copied. I am pretty inexperienced, and I am working with students to make a lit mag. They will fold and bind the booklet themselves. Problem is, I forgot to tell them to make the file so that their spreads mirror their dummy book, and they made the book in numerical order. This was fine when I could print a booklet, but saving as a PDF won't work (I don't think?) .

[Derek Cross]

Are you going to print it yourself of put it out to a printer?

[judeela]

I am just taking it to a copy-place. We will print the individual pages at school, then have it copied out of school, then bind it back at school. So- I think my first big mistake was just not reminding the students to design the pages as they look when we take apart the dummy book. I think I will Rearrange the pages so that I can save it as a PDF and then print. I just don't understand why it started only printing 1/2 of the document!!! THANKS to everyone with these suggestions- it's great to know I can come here to ask questions.

[Derek Cross]

Just print individual pages, so that they'll be full size, and then assemble them as facing pages for photocopying. You'll have to figure out the imposition, which you can easily do by creating a blank dummy, numbering it and then taking it apart!

[Migintosh]

judeela  wrote

I am just taking it to a copy-place.

Do you mean you are taking the printouts to the copy shop, or taking the PDF that you exported from InDesign, and letting the copy shop output it to their networked copier? If the former, why? If the latter, they would most likely be better off with pages that are not arranged into printer spreads. They will likely let their machine/software do the imposition. It's best to ask before you make the decision for them.

[Derek Cross]

It's the former.

[Randy Hagan]

Hello judeela.

Folks here are steering you right. You probably have a couple of options for producing your literary mag. Most copy places have the option to either:

1) Run 11"x17" copies of printed or mechanically assembled 11"x17" originals. Or...

2) Provide an Acrobat PDF file of the job, with (ideally) printed proofs of your individual pages.

Most copy shops have the ability to create correct impositions on their equipment, and letting them charge you $5 or $10 for the responsibility of building your booklet correctly from your single-page files is the cheapest insurance you'll ever buy. They have the tools to get the results you want, and take responsibility for setting up the books correctly. Your print proof documents that you can get the single pages to run, and shows what you expect them to look like in the paginated books. It seems redundant, but for your first few issues you'll find it's essential.

Now, to sleuthing the cause(s) of your problems ...

Begin by going back to the document you were provided. If you didn't save a copy of that original fine and modify the copy, you've likely modified the original file and possibly screwed up the original. Or not, but we won't know for sure unless you go back to the original designer and getting them to send the original file again.

1) Make a copy of the provided file and give that to your copy shop. If they can run it, that means something on your end likely causes problems. If they can't, you need to work things out with them and the copy shop to create files which work. Then have the provider give you an updated, corrected file to work with. There's no need for you to chase issues until you're sure it's literally your problem.

If you had to go back for the originals, please take this lesson to heart:

Always immediately make copies of the original files provided. And work only from those copies. Never modify the original files.

You do say though that you feel changing fonts is at least part of the problem. Which leads to ...

2) Can you print the single-page files from your printer? If they print out fine on your end, you're probably dealing with something you're not providing to the copy shop or some incompatibility between their equipment and yours. But if you can't print it out either, it's on you to fix it.

3) PDFs generally print easier than InDesign documents because A) PDF files are intrinsic, in that (at least theoretically) everything needed to print a page is contained in the PDF file itself, rather than linked to some other file, and B) they're easily created when you package your booklet to give to your copy shop. You can read more about packaging InDesign publications here:

Package files for handoff |

and here:

http://www.unitedgmg.com/resources/how-to-package-a-file-in-indesign/

Packaging collects all of the files associated with printing an InDesign document file. It lets you do an automated quality check of your document and can, in the latest versions of InDesign, let you automatically create a compatible PDF file for your copy shop. Then all you have to do is copy the folder and give it to your copy shop. They should then have everything they need to produce your literary mag.

Good luck,

Randy