[pdftex] producing a5 booklets from a4

[Ricardo Sanchez Carmenes]

On Tue, 8 Oct 2002, Kester Clegg wrote:

>
> Hi
>
> I product a5 booklets from pdflatex produced a4 pdf using texexec
> utility, e.g.
>
> texexec --pdfarrange --paper=a5a4 --print=up
>
> However, this does not achieve the correct typesetting of the page
> layout in a book format, in the way psbook used to.  That is, left-hand
> pages are placed too far over to the righthand edge, the binding edge.
> Thus on opening a booklet, the typeset pages are unequally placed with
> regard to the centre binding.  Is there a cure for this, and why does it
> happen?  Translating the files to ps and using an oldfashioned pipe like
>
> psbook|psnup -2l
>
> produces the same result.  latex produced ps works fine with the tools.
> Are there any pdf utilities that can help me produce properly formatted
> a5 booklets from a4 pdf?

I use sucessfully the following pipe:

cat the_pdf_file.pdf | acroread -toPostScript -level2 -size a4 | psbook | psnup -pa4 -2

Regards,
Ricardo.