Printing booklets in InDesign

Both InDesign CS2 and CS3 have a feature that will quickly rearrange the pages of a "reader spread" document into "printer spread" order, and then print the pages on a duplex (double-sided) printer.

The CS2 feature is located in File > InBooklet SE. By checking the Create New Document option, InDesign will create a copy of your document in printer spread order. You can then use the normal InDesign print dialog box to control duplexing, printing front sides only, etc.

In CS3, the feature is located in File > Print Booklet. This command always rearranges the pages into printer spread order as the document is printed, which works fine as long as you have a duplex printer. If you don't, you will need to print the "front" side of each spread, then flip the pages over, reload them into the printer and print the "back" side of each spread. You can't do this with the File > Print Booklet command in CS3. Here's a slick workaround:

1. Create a PDF of the document in reader spread page order.

2. Open the PDF in Acrobat 8.

3. Choose File > Print.

4. In the drop-down list next to "Page Scaling", choose Booklet Printing, choose Front Side Only for the "Booklet subset" and print the spreads. Repeat for the back sides after reloading the paper in the printer.

 

InDesign templates

When you save a file as a Template in Macintosh InDesign CS or CS2, the file is saved as a Mac OS X "Stationery Pad" file. This is a dumb feature of Mac OS X that is poorly implemented. Every time that you open the template, a new file is automatically created. If the template is named "foo.indt", a file named "foo copy.indt" is automatically created in the same folder as the original file.

This is really clunky, because a) it is unlikely that you will want to leave the file named "foo copy.indt"; and b) the filename still carries th .indt filename extension, which indicates that it is still a template file, which is untrue.

The workaround is to save the file as a Template in InDesign, and then close the file. In the Macintosh Finder, select the file copy that is created, and choose File > Get Info. In the Info dialog box, deselect the Stationery Pad option, and select the Locked option.

The next time you open the file, it will open as a "Read-Only" file. When you choose File > Save, you will automatically be prompted for a new file name.

Windows InDesign CS and CS2 doesn't have this limitation, nor does InDesign CS3 on Macintosh or Windows.

Check out Adobe Magazine

The June 2007 issue of Adobe Magazine is now available as a free download. The current issue is a 33-page PDF formatted for on-screen viewing. I haven't read it through yet, but it looks like it contains some interesting content.

If you want to read about what is happening in the Quark world, download the latest issue of X-Ray Magazine, also in PDF format.

InDesign "Import Options" shortcut

If you check the Show Import Options choice in the Place dialog box when you are importing text or graphics into your layout, you will be see some options before the file is placed. If you are placing a Word file, the dialog box will let you choose how much formatting to import with the text, whether or not you want to convert quotes to typographer's quotes and how to map paragraph styles. If you are placing a PDF file, you can choose which pages of the PDF to place.

The trouble is, once you check this box, you will see the options dialog box every time you place text or graphics files, until you deselect the box.

The solution? Just leave the Show Import Options choice deselected, and hold down the shift key while you click the Open button when you want to see the Import Options dialog box. This will affect only the current graphic or text file you have selected. The next time you place a file, the Import Options dialog box will not appear, unless you hold down the shift key again.

Create contact sheets in InDesign

I've written an article for the June/July 2007 issue of InDesign Magazine about how to use the Tools > Create InDesign Contact Sheet command in Adobe Bridge to create contact sheets.

First of all, if you are serious about becoming a "Jedi Master" of InDesign, you should subscribe to InDesign Magazine. (Enter the discount code "BACKPAGE" to subscribe for $39 (1-year) or $69 (2-years). Each issue packs in an unbelievable amount of InDesign-specific information.

The Create InDesign Contact Sheet command is a great way to automate contact sheet, photo album, catalog and coffee-table book production with either InDesign CS2 or CS3. Since the Create InDesign Contact Sheet "command" is really a Bridge script, its features are largely undocumented. That is where my article is useful.

The Create InDesign Contact Sheet command also contains numerous bugs and doesn't quite work as expected. For this reason, I rolled up my sleeves and dug into the JavaScript code, and produced a much-more-useful version of the script for InDesign and Bridge CS3, as well as some other helpful scripts and templates for both CS2 and CS3. Again, all the background information you need for using these scripts and templates is in the InDesign Magazine article. However, if you want just the scripts and templates, you can download them here (906k zip file).

You can also read more about this at InDesign Secrets.