[pdftex] producing a5 booklets from a4

[Hans Hagen]

At 09:40 PM 10/8/2002 +0100, Kester Clegg wrote:
>Jens-Uwe Morawski <morawski at gmx.net> writes:
>
>[...]
>
> > Running this file with pdflatex gives a doublesided A5 document with a
> > small inner margin and a wide outer margin.
>
>Please please read the initial email.  If you have got pdflatex to give
>you a doublesided A5 document you are *not* repeating my test and I am
>not the slightest bit interested!

hm, i thought it was you who started talking about high end page 
imposition, so why this kind of unfriendly reaction

> > The re-arranging of those A5-pages on a A4-paper using
> >
> > texexec --pdfarr --noduplex --paper=A5A4 itsname
> >
> > gives a A4-paper with two A5-pages arranged side-by-side.
> > No margin is added. No margin is removed.
>   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>That is the problem, IMHO.  Forget messing about with source documents.

eh, if you're starting point is a single sided document, then you expect 
the postprocessor to mess around with margins, so ...

>Just completely forget that.  Let's just say I have an a4 pdf document,
>typeset single-sided.  I don't care if came off the moon and was created
>by a camel.  If I try to process that document using the parameters I
>gave with texexec, the booklet does not come out right.  The pages are
>all set with the same margin spacing, instead of being arranged suitably
>for a book.  However, putting that same pdf document through the pipe
>suggested by Ricardo means it *does* come out right.  Am I making myself
>crystal clear?

no, but it looks like you expect the arranging application to add margins 
(or maybe to look at the boundingbox or whatever)

>It appears from your answer, that I am trying to do something that
>texexec was not intended for.  That's fine.  I just misunderstood.  The
>manual gave me the impression that it could rearrange the pages of an a4
>pdf document, as it says:
>
>         Given that the A4 version is typeset, one can generate a booklet
>         by saying:
>
>         texexec --pdfarrange --paper=a5a4 --print=up --addempty=1,2
                                       ^^^^
>         pdftex-t
>
>Call me stupid, but I clearly missed what it meant here.  I thought I
>could use texexec to rearrange the pages of an *existing* a4 pdf
                                                            ^^
that's the point you missed: a5a4 tells context to map A5 onto A4 which is 
not the same as mapping A4 onto A4

>document to make an a5 booklet, in the manner of psbook|psnup -2l can do
>for a ps document.  If texexec can do this, correctly, please show me.
>I would be happy to send you the pdf file that's comes out perfectly
>through Ricardo's pipe, but doesn't when processed by texexec.

as said, if your starting point is an ***A4*** document, then say 
--paper=A4A3 (see previous mail); when printing, acrobat will nicely scale 
down the a3 to a4. [as an alternative, do a first run of texexec --pdfcopy 
and scale the doc down to a5]

a.tex : \starttext \showframe \dorecurse{10}{\input tufte \page} \stoptext

texexec --pdf a
texexec --pdfcopy --scale=.707 --result=b a
texexec --pdfarra --paper=a5a4 --print=up b

>If texexec can't do what I want it (which I now suspect), then to
>reiterate my question for the last time, is there something that can do
>for a pdf document what a psbook|psnup pipe could for a ps document?
>And do it correctly, as my (albeit botched) attempts at using texexec
>for that purpose have ended in failure!

as said, texexec is just a wrapper, you can copy the generated texexec.tex 
file into yourfile.tex, tune the settings (manipulate whataver you want, 
add whatever you need, etc) and process that one; the fact that others have 
done so succesfully may be an indication that it *can* be done -)

Hans
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