[pdftex] producing a5 booklets from a4

[Kester Clegg]

Hans Hagen <pragma at wxs.nl> writes:

> At 11:39 AM 10/8/2002 +0100, Kester Clegg wrote:
> >Rolf Niepraschk <Rolf.Niepraschk at ptb.de> writes:
> >
> > > > 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

[...]

> what exactly is the problem?
> 
> the minimal file "itsname.tex":
> 
>    % output=pdftex
> 
>    \setuppapersize[A5][A5]
> 
>    \starttext \dorecurse{10}{\input tufte\page} \stoptext
> 
> processed by
> 
>    texexec itsname
> 
> and postprocessed by
> 
>    texexec --pdfarr --paper=A5A4 --print=up itsname
> 
> produces a booklet here

But does it typset each page correctly for an a5 booklet, or does it
typset them all with the same margins as if they were being printed on
single side a4?  When I run that command (texexec --pdfarr --paper=A5A4
--print=up) on a pdf document here, the a5 booklet has the cover
correct, the second page positioned identically to the first, which is
wrong for a book. The third is correct and so on.  That means the left
hand and right hand margins are the *wrong way round* on the second
page.  Facing pages should mirror their margin spacing (placing the
mirror along the binding), so that the space either side of the binding
is always equal.  At the moment, it's unequal which is unattractive and
like no professionally produced book on earth!


-- 
************************************************************************
Kester Clegg                Dept. of Computer Science,
Research Associate (UTC)    University of York, UK

Tel (01904) 43 33 75        email: kester at cs.york.ac.uk
************************************************************************