FREE N-up PDF imposition using OS X Preview

[skrilla]

Hello, I'm new here so I'm not sure if anyone has posted this yet.

I've been looking for a FREE solution for simple PDF imposition for a while now. I just noticed that the new version of Preview included in Snow Leopard (Preview 5.0) has a new feature in its Print Dialog box. You can now select "Images per page:" and below that, a check box for "Print X copies per page". (I included a screen shot) Using these options and re-saving as a PDF = FREE imposition.

[Dov Isaacs]

I would urge serious caution in use of this wonderful free solution.

First of all, MacOS X Preview is hardly a reliable, robust processor and displayer of PDF, especially graphically rich PDF that would typically be found in prepress situations.

Secondly, refrying PDF (the process of creating PDF from existing PDF) by printing to PostScript and distilling that PostScript back into PDF is strongly discouraged and not recommended by Adobe for a number of reasons, including loss of live transparency and color management issues.

Finally, beginning with MacOS X 10.6, printing to the Adobe PDF PostScript printer driver instance to create PostScript and direct it automatically to the Distiller is no longer an option. (This was an Apple issue, not Adobe's choice!)

- Dov

[wonderings]

There are some very cheap good imposition software add ons for indesign out there. I have 2, croptima and inplate. Croptima was under $100 I believe and works great for your standard stuff and saves me alot of time. Easy to use add on in indesign.

[LoneGoose]

Alas, if I post a reply to this thread it'll get kicked back up the 'recents' list, while it should really be left to sink deeper and deeper down into the forum's history; and hopefully forgotten there.

skrilla, if you absolutely positively have to do manual impositioning, you're much safer using a DTP program.

[Dov Isaacs]

There are some very cheap good imposition software add ons for indesign out there. I have 2, croptima and inplate. Croptima was under $100 I believe and works great for your standard stuff and saves me alot of time. Easy to use add on in indesign.

Quite frankly, InDesign is not the place to do PDF imposition. It is not an imposition program and can be lossy for some detailed aspects of placed PDF (especially PDF/X output rendering intents and transparency flattening color spaces).

If you don't have imposition software as an integral part of your PDF workflow / RIP system, a better place to do imposition is in Acrobat itself. You might want to take a look at Quite Software's Quite Imposing and Quite Imposing Plus plug-ins for Acrobat. Yes, they are not "cheap" but then again, it isn't amateur hour software either. Highly functional, highly reliable. (For the record, I am not paid or otherwise compensated to endorse their software!)

Editorial

The emphasis on "cheap" in this thread is highly disturbing to me. Amazing how many print professionals drool over expensive presses and other "hardware" but continually bitch and moan about the cost of software, but will spend many hours of their time avoiding software maintenance or purchase of professional products that will readily solve their problems. They forget the value of their own time and the cost of having to redo work.

- Dov

[mattbeals]

Dov, I absolutely agree... Iron is "sexy", you can brag about how wide the units are and how many you have, how many sheets per hour. But you can't brag about having imposition software or desktop publishing simply because it doesn't have the same gravitas for lack of a better term.

[Joe]

If someone thinks that is "free imposition software" then someone doesn't know what imposition software is.

[Ultimate]

Best professional imposition plug-in for Acrobat, MAC or Windows: Absolutely Imposing at only $395.

Download a free demo on our web site: www. imposition.com

Ray Duval
Ultimate Technographics
SEE US AT IPEX 2010: Stand 12D100

[claude72]

Finally, beginning with MacOS X 10.6, printing to the Adobe PDF PostScript printer driver instance to create PostScript and direct it automatically to the Distiller is no longer an option.

PostScript+Distiller is still the best practice to make PDF for printers who cannot afford for your last PrintEngine RIP.

(This was an Apple issue, not Adobe's choice!)

(as every people working with computers) It's exactly what I hear since almost 20 years that I work with computers: each time that a problem occurs in a computer, involving 2 different software's editors, both companies always reject all the responsability on the other company... so you can repeat that's Apple is responsable, so many people have been so often tricked that they don't believe you!

And it is easy to accuse Apple, but it is not Apple that removes the "AdobePDF9" PPD from the users hard-drives... but it's some Adobe's stuff, intentionally made by Adobe to stop the users to go on using PostScript + Distiller! If Adobe had been so innocent, Adobe would have left the PPD for the users who need it!

Amazing how many print professionals drool over expensive presses and other "hardware" but continually bitch and moan about the cost of software

Let me explain something to you: when we (printers) buy presses or some other kind of hardwares, we know that we will be able to use it enough long time to pay it and we know that we will earn some money with it before being obliged to replace it...

... but your softwares are so expensive, so quickly obsolete and your scientific organization of the incompatibility to oblige the users to always buy your newest softwares is so efficient that some little companies (like mine) are obliged to buy new softwares before having finished to pay the previous stuff (or before having earn money with the previous versions)!!!

... and in many cases we earn more money by spending some more time to deal with work-arounds and old sofwares and old RIPs, that by using new adapted softwares/RIPs.

And that's not amazing: simply open your eyes and look at the real world, you'll see that it's only a sad consequence of Adobe's economical choices: actually, Adobe and all that stuff needed with Adobe's softs for DTP are simply ruining the little printers!!!
... and that's why we "moan about the cost of software"... and especially about the excessive cost of Adobe's softwares for the too short time that they can be used!!!

[Keith]

And it's easier to lease a machine than it is to lease software. I'm planning on building a new workstation and the software I want to put on it will easily cost three times as much as the hardware.

There's a lot of good points on both sides....