I was having an issue with Adobe CS5 InDesign's Print booklet function. First off though I should explain Print Booklet to those of you that may not be familiar with this tool. Then tell you why you might have a problem with it too, and how to fix it.
What is Print Booklet:
Print booklet let you take your InDesign multi page documents and print them in Printer Spreads. For example, I have a document with a finished page size of 5.5″x8.5″. The document is 8 pages long. I want to make a PDF in printer spreads with the page size of 11″x8.5″, two pages per sheet so I can fold and staple it. When it's in Printer spreads the first page will show me page 8 and 1 and the second page will show you page 2 and 7 and so on.
Here's the problem:
When I go to Print Booklet in Indesign CS5, on a MacBook Pro running OS X 10.6.4, and try to make a PDF file the page rotates the wrong direction. You can't make a PDF from the print window, or export to PDF from Print Booklet and there is no PDF printer in Indesign CS5 on OS X 10.6.4. The only way I can see to make a PDF from Print Booklet is to make a Postscript file and use Acrobat Distiller to make the PDF. I'm using the printer, Postscript® File, with the Postscript Printer Definition (PPD), Device Independent. That's where the problem occurs, there are no page rotation controls for this Printer. It looks fine in the preview, but the PDF page is always vertical with a horizontal image on it.
Adobe Tech Support Answer:
It took jumping through a few hoops to get to a higher level in Adobe's Tech Support System, but when I got to the right person they were great.
The reason PDF printer doesn't install with CS5 on Mac OS X 10.6.4 is a security setting on the Mac side. There are talks going on to resolve the issue.
Fix 1:
Edit the Adobe Distiller settings to force the page to rotate in the right direction. In my case this is a good fix for me because all my pages are 11″ wide x 8.5″ tall. The path is, Settings>Edit Adobe PDF Settings…, at the bottom of the first page that opens is Default Page Size. In my case I reversed the numbers and it fixed my problem. I then saved the settings with the word landscape on the end of the settings name. If your doing a lot of different size pages and having this issue you'd have to make a new settings file for each page size.
Fix 2:
This is the fix I was looking for. I loaded the PPD for Adobe PDF 9. The file is ADPDF9.PPD. Here is a link to download it from InDesign Secrets. Open the Indesign Folder in applications, go to the presets folder and make a folder called PPDs, put the file, ADPDF9.PPD, in that folder. That was what Adobe tech support told me to name the folder, I'm not sure it has to be that name but I bet it does. I restarted InDesign, went to print booklet, edited the print settings, and picked Adobe PDF 9 from the PPD drop down list. This PPD lets me edit the rotation, and page size. A better solution if your dealing with different file sizes.
Problem solved.
24 comments:
Brilliant, thank you!
Sweet! Solution #2 was totally what I was looking for. cheers!
THANKS! That was just what I needed. But I am having issues with the bleed. My PDF doesn't have any bleed though I had set the bleed settings, checked and double checked them.
Any ideas?
AWESOME! TY for posting this!
my first time using indesign....still trying to figure out how to get the pages to properly show up in print booklet properly, it's inserting blank pages and won't connect my first and last page together T__T
It's a beautiful thing!
Thank you! I was trying to figure out a workaround. You saved me.
Your time wading through customer support to talk to that one golden person who knows what's going on is much appreciated! I hope they resolve this problem more elegantly soon.
Thank you! I have spent all afternoon and night trying to find a fix for this very problem. I recently switched from a PC to a Mac and consequently had to upgrade from CS4 to CS5. Everything had been going smoothly until I hit this wall, right at press time. You saved me! Thank you for sharing--you rock!
thanks so much for this!
thanks a MILLION!!!!
Me and my eyebags are extremely happy for this!
Sorry Dorothy, I had missed your comment and wasn't sure how to message you. There are 4 places you need to set the bleed. 1. In the document. 2. In the print driver, 3. In the print booklet interface. 4. In the distiller settings, only here your not setting bleed, your increasing the page size to fit the bleed. So if your page size is 8.5x11 with a bleed of .125 your distiller page size needs to be 8.75x11.25.
Hope that helps.
you have just saved my ass and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Thanks for the tip. Worked great. I have no idea why Adobe took away the ability to create booklets in InDesign. It was an easy click bak in the old days of PageMaker.
You made my day! Tks so much!
Thank you! Genuine life saver.
One point to note, if you are exporting with crop marks you may need to make the doc size even larger in the print settings / distiller.
I estimate the size of crop marks for .125 bleed to be about .29 inches, making the total document size 9.8x11.58 to export properly.
It all seems to work fine until I try to open the file, then it says the file is unreadable. Indesign saves it as a PS file. I have acrobat reader version 9 and I'm using CS5.5 on Windows 7.
Any ideas?
Thanks
@halfmorgan I need a bit more info if you'd like help with this because I'm not sure the problem you're having.
The .PS file is the file you run through distiller to make a PDF.I'm using CS5.0, but I can't imagine 5.5 would have broken this.
THANK YOU. Thank you for your time in figuring this out, and for sharing the solution! I recently upgraded to InDesign 5.5 and the print booklet routine was driving me nuts, no longer worked as expected. My pages weren't rotating, but I was having issues with page sizes and all sorts of weirdness. Your "fix #2" got me back on track again. Hopefully Adobe and Apple will get this sorted out soon.
Thank you so much for figuring this out and posting it!
the second fix work with InDesign CS5.5?
For those of you that asked it appears from posts that 5.5 still has the issue, and this fix still works. I didn't get the 5.5 upgrade so I am not sure personally.
As for bleed settings you can set bleed in distiller, which would work well with solution 1, and you can also set it in inDesign if you go to print settings from the Print Booklet window and select the suggested print driver.
God damn lifesaver!! This issue has racked my brain for the last 3hrs!!
You, sir or madam, are a saint. You endlessly went through hell and back to help your fellow designers and fellow man and woman. You have made a week long journey end in utter orgasmic, InDesign joy!
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