Re: Suggestions for page layout

[David Wright]

On Thu 26 Oct 2017 at 15:03:33 (-0700), Flaming Hakama by Elaine wrote:
> > I'm looking for a way to create the pdfs necessary
> > for doing the booklet layout.
> 
> 
> Thanks for all the suggestions.
> 
> Mogens, I didn't realize that some of this could be done from a print
> dialog.
> For easy patterns this seems like a nice short path.
> 
> David, I think that your approach is most in line with the production
> process I'd like.  Thanks especially for your order-computing functions!
> 
> Peter, I will also look at pdfbook to see how it compares to pdftk and
> whether that is more appropriate to incorporate.

One reason I avoided pdfbook was because of handling the output
paper size, but if you work in one locale with appropriate
/etc/papersize and ~/.pdfjam.conf etc, then there should be
no problem. (I produce output destined for the UK as well as here
so I prefer explicit calls of pdfjam. Currently I have 27 functions
calling pdfjam in my ~/.bashrc)

pdftk is a great tool which I'm using all the time. It's great for
compiling/collating, but I don't think it can composite, which is
what you want for exploiting a large-format printer. I use it
almost entirely in filter mode, using temporary directories/files,
because I'm too lazy to learn how to use its "handles" for
multiple input sources.

Cheers,
David.