[scribus] how to export two A4 pages for printing A5 folder?

[Frank Busse]

@a.l.e: Sun, 13 Jun 2010 12:01:10 +0200

Thank you very much for your quick answer!

> scribus does not do it himself.
> (and the layout is only a settings for the display on screen)

Well, at least the page size option in the document layout tab has an effect on the PDF export: The PDF page size is set to A5, too.
 
> you have to use an imposition software for it:
> http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Category:HOWTO#Imposition

Although pdfjam (req'ing a complete TeX environment) is a bit "oversized" for just PDF imposition, it appears to do at least the job initially mentioned in a very streamlined way. Thanks for this hint.

Now for the some more advanced problem:

The document layout options have a tab "bleed" (is this the correct translation of the German "Anschnitt"?). Because some of my page borders are colored, in the imposition scheme, these colored borders should "overlap" into the bleed. The PDF export options have a corresponding tab "pre-press". Here the req'ed cutting marks can be def'ed.

Exporting to PDF and selecting the previewing option "document layout: double page right" (German: "Anzeigeeinstellung, Dokumentlayout: Doppelseite rechts") results to a preview of almost exactly what I would have expected - apart from that pages 4 and 1 are separated to beginning and end of the document instead of being combined together, and a bleed is inserted between pages 2 and 3. And, more sadly, this is only a preview: The PDF file in fact contains four separate pages...

Combining these pages using pdfnup results to scaling the pages to standard A4 instead of the "oversized" imposition scheme. It seems that I only have the option to either have the pages automatically sized down or to have the additional borders cut off - which both obviously is not what I intended to do.

Scribus appears to be very close to be able to do this (not that uncommon) task. Only one step missing. - So I still hope for any further hint...