Printing A5 pages to brochure on A4 paper

James3359

I am somewhat nervous about posting this as printing seems to be one of the most complex areas in using NeoOffice, and I know I don't understand properly the relation between the different elements of the Aqua print dialog and the NeoOffice Printer Options pane.

I have been following the instructions on How to create brochures - NeoWiki. I have encountered problems with the print job not being correctly oriented to the paper. e.g. landscape A4 layout made up of two A5 pages being printed (as much as will fit) across the top of portrait A4. Or the whole thing being scaled to fit on portrait A4. I have now found the following recipe which works for me (NeoOffice 2.2.2 Patch 3, OS X 10.4.11). I have searched the forum and AFAICT this has not been posted in relation to brochure printing and is not on the Wiki.

To print A5 pages as a booklet onto A4 paper

HTH

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

Thanks for providing these set of steps. You are right that NeoOffice's printing sometimes requires non-intuitive and/or downright complex steps so posting detailed steps like yours are very helpful and much appreciated.

Patrick

Lorinda · Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:15 pm Post subject:

As Patrick said, thanks.

I have added your instructions as "Method 2" on the wiki page you mentioned.

Lorinda
friendly wiki elf

James3359 · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 7:57 am Post subject:

Thanks for this, Lorinda, everyone should have a friendly wiki elf Smile

Do you think Method Two should have a first line saying "Starting with document with A5 portrait pages, you'll end up with an A5 sized booklet (ie A4 folded in half)." Otherwise people might mistake it for an alternative method of achieving the same results as Method One

James

jgd · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 8:08 am Post subject:

I'm a bit confused with the instructions in the wiki, and here.

If I understood well:

In method one, you start with A4 portrait pages and you want an A5 booklet on A4 paper.
In method two, you start with A5 portrait pages and you want an A5 booklet on A4 paper.

In both cases, I didn't see any difference whether I display the Page Preview or not.

To set the paper size, I've had to go to the File > Printer Settingsâ€¦ menu. Pressing Command-P doesn't show the window with the Paper Size drop-down menu.
Then in the Printer Options window, you have to check Brochure and click OK.

Is there something I misunderstood?

I work on Leopard, Intel and PPC.

I'm waitng a little before updating the French page.

Jacqueline

James3359 · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 11:02 am Post subject:

OK my understanding from this thread is that Printer Settings - although it brings up the dialog does not actually do anything. See Patrick's posts on that thread.

In the A5 sheet to A5 booklet document I printed the paper size is set up to be A5 Portrait in Format::Page. I am not sure about the next bit, but I think it is in the 'Paper Handling' part of the Print dialog where I tell the software what kind of paper I am using in the printer. I do this by selecting 'Scale to fit paper size:' and telling it what size of paper I want it to scale to.

As far as I can tell there is no way of telling it if I load the paper in anything other than its standard orientation except by setting up a custom paper size.

I hope this helps. It is probably partly my fault that File::Printer settings... still looks as if it might do something. I think getting them to sync with what the document has in its document settings is a major task. At present that seems to mean that the system wide paper sizes accessible in most Mac applications via Page Setup (from com.apple.print.custompapers.plist and or from the PPD file for the printer) are not accessible in the same way from NeoOffice. But I'm still finding my way with all this, so I could be wrong.

Perhaps instead of File::Printer settings bringing up the native dialog it could bring up a warning that it doesn't currently do anything.

Lorinda · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 11:26 am Post subject:

jgd · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 12:22 pm Post subject:

The File > Printer Settingsâ€¦ menu opens a window with a Paper Size drop-down menu.

It looks like the paper size is set in this dialog. Afterwards, when you press Command-P, the dialog which opens needs to be expanded by clicking on the triangle on the right of the Printer drop-down (for me - in Leopard - it's not expanded by default). Then you can choose "Paper Handling", and check the "Scale to fit paper size" box if you want to change the paper size. You can choose "Duplex Printing" in the same drop-down.

I think that Method One needs to be updated. Smile

Jacqueline

James3359 · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 1:32 pm Post subject:

Yes this is what threw me too. I thought I was changing the document's paper size via File::Print Settings... but I was not. I have just tried it to check.

NeoOffice does not respond to any paper size you choose from that dialog. NeoOffice only responds to paper size set up through Format::Page... and selecting the paper size you want from the Format dropdown in the Page tab of the Page Style dialog.

I think that in OS X 10.5 Leopard the scaling options (which can be accessed in Tiger via the Paper Handling dropdown in the Print dialog) are available in the main Print dialog. Pictures here. I can't say much more about Leopard as I only have Tiger, but it looks as though Leopard will let you change the orientation via the Print Dialog as well - which you can't do in Tiger.

jgd · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 1:40 pm Post subject:

Lorinda · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 1:48 pm Post subject:

I'm still using Tiger, and will be for the forseeable future. I could polish
English Leopard-related corrections if it works for you to make them, Jacqueline. Or do we have another English speaking wiki elf with Leopard?

Lorinda

jgd · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 2:08 pm Post subject:

Yes, I think I'll be able to do that tomorrow (time difference as usual Wink

). If a Leopard-English-speaker-user can check the method I describe, that would be nice. Smile

Jacqueline

jgd · Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 5:50 am Post subject:

I've updated the wiki.

I believe that going through Preview is useless. So I commented the first five items in "Starting with A4 pages" and the first one in "Starting with A5 pages".

I think that the method valid for Tiger applies to 10.3.9 too, but I cannot test.

Can anyone check the methods for Panther and Tiger (and even for Leopard!), and polish my English?

[url=http://neowiki.neooffice.org/index.php/Fr:CrÃ©er_des_Brochures]en franÃ§ais[/url]

in English

Thanks.

Jacqueline

amayze · Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 6:20 am Post subject:

Do these steps work for everyone?

I still find that I have to go through NeoOffice's Print Preview -> Print options page view -> Format -> Landscape to persuade NeoOffice to print two pages sideways on the page, rather than two tiny pages at the top of the page.

Andy (who wrote the article in the first place!)

valterb · Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 6:23 am Post subject:

in italiano

Valter