[pdftex] producing a5 booklets from a4

[Kester Clegg]

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!  

> 
> 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.
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?

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
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.

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!


-- 
************************************************************************
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
************************************************************************