folded booklets (XP)

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I have a set of documents that I want to print as booklets, all of which have large graphics in the headers/footers. XP’s pages per sheet: 2 / scale to paper size: letter works just fine, except that I need the shrunken pages to appear in bookfold order. If I select multiple pages: bookfold in Page Setup, the pages per sheet & scale to paper size options are grayed out. Is there any way (through VBA or otherwise) that I can select all these options simultaneously?

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If you select the bookfold option then the setup of 2 pages per sheet and the scale option is removed because Word is automatically resizing the pages (not the content size) and will print it out 2 pages per sheet with the relevant impositions.

You don’t need to scale anything but it does mean that you are printing onto that size paper (ie half the area of Letter). This will do horrible things to your graphics and tables.

You may find it easier to setup your document at the correct paper size and then choose the Bookfold PageSetup at twice that size. You will have to work out the correct borders to go with the bookfold.

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I need the scale option *and* the bookfold option because what my boss is looking for is a shrunken version of our original. He wants to shrink our originals (double-sided, letter-sized portrait pages) approximately 50% and print them two to a landscape, letter-sized page, but with bookfold page numbering. (We cut the letter-sized pages in half and use coil bindings to produce our shrunken booklets.)

I was able to work around Word’s constraints by using only the bookfold option, printing on landscape tabloid pages (2 portrait letter size pages per side) & then shrinking them from tabloid to letter on a copier. However, I’m still looking for a solution that will allow me to shrink *and* bookfold simultaneously in Word, so that we can produce these shrunken booklets in color. Using shrink without bookfold would work for single-sided booklets, but our end product is double-sided. Duplex-printed “shrink only” booklets end up with the wrong pages on the back of each other. The one utility I’ve tried was unable to cope with our page-width header and footer graphics, which the “shrink” option handles with ease.

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I don’t think Word by itself will do the job you need. The booklet imposition and scaling to print don’t appear to be compatible.

Third party tools such as the one already suggested may be your best option.

Unless you set the document up with the reset page sizes in mind then the bookfold is very problematic. You could get something pretty close if the document was scaled down by ~70% including the graphics and all fonts. This could be done with a macro pretty easily but the pagination certainly wouldn’t be the same as the full size variant.

Are all your completed copies being produced as first generation from the printer? If you have a larger run you could do the imposition and double-siding and shrinking all on the photocopier. This is not as slick as the ideal solution but may be adequate and less taxing on your printer.

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Thanks for your input. If Click Books doesn’t work, then we’ll go with tabloid black and white sheets that we’ll shrink to letter size on a copier. We had hoped to find something we could print first generation on our color printer.

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I’ve used Clickbooks to perform this function. It handles the scaling and page re-ordering very well. It can use a printer’s built-in duplexor or walk you through manual duplexing.

Review: http://www.lacspc.org/software/0801clickbook5.htm
Vendor: http://www.bluesquirrel.com/

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Thanks! I’m hoping this is the solution we need. I’ll let you know, but it may be a while — we’re going to wait till we actually have another booklet situation before we download the 30-day free trial.

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The article http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…US;Q120778&%5B/url%5D on the Microsoft site describes how to create booklets using text boxes. A while back I tried this method and found it to be very clumsy. First, you have to predefine a document for each possible booklet size (4, 8, 12, 16, etc pages). Each of these documents contains the appropriate number of text boxes properly ordered and linked. Once created, you can type or paste your text into them and print. The linked text boxes take care of the page reordering.

I found several problems with the method. First, it wasn’t easy to get the documents set up. Second, there was a limit of 32 pages. Third, you had to know in advance how many pages (actually, blocks of 4 pages) you were going to have. Fourth, the linked text boxes slowed Word down considerably.

But, just because I didn’t like the method doesn’t mean that it can’t work for you. If you only have a few short documents to deal with, it might work very well.

OTOH, it doesn’t take much fiddling around time to equal the cost of Clickbooks.

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Booklets wouldn’t be a problem if we were starting from scratch to produce booklets, but we’re looking for ways to shrink pre-existing documents without having to spend a lot of additiional time on them. We definitely plan to try Clickbooks the next time we run into this.

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