Save brochure as PDF from InDesign

[Mattia_Castelli7842]

I need to save a PDF with pages laid out for booklet printing, so that it's ready to be printed. Unfortunately, the "Print Booklet" option doesn't allow me to save directly as a PDF, and when I try saving it as a PostScript file, I can't choose the orientation or other settings properly, and the result comes out misaligned.
Is there a way to do this directly from InDesign? Thank you!

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I'm assuming you are on a Mac since Windows systems still can print to the Adobe PDF print driver to create a PDF. Try using the free Print to PDF - Printer app.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/print-to-pdf-printer-app/id1639234272?mt=12

[Willi Adelberger]

In a proction process you export an INDD file as PDF with single pages with bleed.

The printer's task is to impose those pages for print.

Print booklet is not for professional purposes.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

There are other purposes for printing or creating a PDF an imposed booklet from InDesign. 

[rob day]

I need to save a PDF with pages laid out for booklet printing, so that it's ready to be printed.

Hi @Mattia_Castelli7842 , Are you printing the booklet in-house or sending it out to a professional printer? It would be unusual for a printer to request an imposed PDF because the client would not know all the binding and press details that would affect the imposition.

[davecourtemanche]

The orientation & alignment issues are coming from Acrobat Distiller. In Distiller, go to Settings / Edit Adobe PDF settings. Under General, at the bottom is the Default Page Size.

This is where I was getting screwed up trying to make a specific sized booklet and having the layout get wonky.

[Randy Hagan]

To be honest you'd likely do better quickly repurposing your brochure to print on two sides of a single sheet of paper than to get it to spit out a six-page document as a trifold brochure "booklet."

To learn how quick and easy that should be for you, check out the following link:

https://www.adobe.com/learn/indesign/web/make-brochure

Hope this helps,

Randy

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

"Is there a way to do this directly from InDesign?"

Totally. If you are printing this yourself***, then printing Postscript > Distiller is the way to go if you want to save your Booklet as a PDF, but you need to use a PPD that will properly define a page size. i.e. you must not select Device Independent as that writes the PS only for the objects in your file but does not include a page size, hence why it does not create a properly-oriented and aligned PDF.

The best way is to install the ADPDF9.PPD (available here https://helpx.adobe.com/ca/indesign/kb/add-acrobat-ppd.html) into the PPDs folder inside your ID install. This PDF will alllow you to select the proper page size or create a custom one for your own purposes. If your own printer happens to be a Postscript printer, you could use its PPD (like, I could use my Xerox PPD seen below just as easily), but there are limitations to that so I don't recommend it.

 

Once you have that you should be able to select the right page size to contain your printer spreads.

I recommend creating a Print Preset in InDesign for the size of paper you use regularly so you don't have to do it every time. For example, I print simple Letter-size booklets on 12"x18" paper (as I need bleed), so I have a Print Preset that ha sthat size, the settings for Crop Marks and Bleed, High Res Flattening, etc, etc, which looks like this: (adapt to your own needs, of course)

 Then when you Print Booklet, you can select this Preset. Check the Preview to see if you are getting what you expect, then Save the PostScript file and then Distill it to a PDF.

 

*** If you are NOT printing this yourself, you really should be Exporting individual page PDFs directly from ID and having your vendor impose the booklets properly. The issue with the Postscript workflow is that it is limited to Level 3 code and will necessarily flatten any live transparency and color management that would otherwise exist in properly exported PDFs from Indesign. That being said, if you ARE printing this yourself, this "flattening" is happening anyway, so you should get what you expect in print.