Exporting Saddle Stitch - Part of Design is cut off

[KCedar]

Hi there!

I'm not sure why, but suddenly when I'm exporting a booklet from InDesign, the top left hand design is cut off and I can't figure out how to fix this? I am a beginner in InDesign, but I have made booklets in it before, so I'm not sure why it has suddenly started doing this. I'm hoping someone can help. 

I designed the images in photoshop on 8.5x11 and then I've "placed" them in InDesign on the pages I'd like for them to be. I know this is probably a more time consuming way to go about it, but I'm more comfortable with photoshop at the moment, than InDesign. When I "preview" the booklet under "print booklet", everything is lining up properly and looks great, it's once I save it as a postscript that it comes up like the design is too tall. 

Help!

[Derek Cross]

Use PDF/X-4 (unless your printer has given you a different spec.)

You normally add your images (Place them) from Photoshop as PSD documents into InDesign and add your text in InDesign.

If you've added your text in Photoshop, export the document as a PDF and place that in InDesign.

[KCedar]

Hi Derek, Thank you for taking the time to respond - I appreciate it!

The issue is that I'm trying to export it in saddle stitch, but it seems the only way to do this is the choose Print Booklet and export as a .ps file then convert to PDF. But, when I use Print Booklet (rather than straight export), this is when my document it being cut off at the tops, and even though saddle stitch is selected, it is only exporting 1/2 of the booklet. I'm not sure if the paper sizing is incorrect of something, but I can't seem to figure it out. 😞 

[Randy Hagan]

There is another, probably better way:

1. Set your pages one-up, and create a PDF file from your InDesign document.
2. Open the PDF in Acrobat DC. Print the document as a booklet from Acrobat, setting your desired single-page dimensions and let Acrobat stitch together your printer spreads to produce the booklet.

You can read more about how to set up Acrobat to produce booklets for you here:

Create PDF Booklets from Adobe Acrobat

Hope this helps,

Randy

[Dov Isaacs · Accepted solution]

Neither the solutions offered directly in InDesign nor the print booklet feature of Acrobat yield professional results. In both cases, you are using PostScript techniques which remove live transparency and color management. The print booklet feature of Acrobat is fairly amateurish with very few options and some limitations in that is shrinks pages to printable borders, regardless of white space you already have on your pages.

If you really need to create booklets and maintain full quality, I recommend the following:

Alternative 1 – Any good, professional print service provider (including traditional offset printers and digital printers) should be able to properly “impose” your content for booklet printing and/or to accomodate the geometry of their printing process without any content degradation and most often as part of the RIPing process itself.

Alternative 2 – There are Acrobat plug-ins, such as Quite Imposing from Quite Software that provide a full range of page imposition and manipulation tools within Acrobat and without any quality loss. I personally use that solution for manipulating PDF files that I must print on local, lower-end devices.