Imposition is one of the fundamental steps in the prepress printing process. It consists of the arrangement of the printed product's pages on the printer's sheet, in order to obtain faster printing, simplify binding and reduce paper waste.

Wikipedia

Information

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Step 1: Choose an imposition layout

All layouts assume that your are printing a PDF files with pages much smaller than your actual paper (that is, at least two pages will be printed on each paper page). Choose a layout depending on what you indend to do with this file, or how you would like to bind it.

🔗 Copy-cut-fold: Produce several copies of the same book.

Show illustration… Short explaination of layout copycutfold.
Choose another layout

Step 2: Select a PDF file

Step 3: Customize

For simple tasks, you might be happy with default values and skip to the next step.
Output format Output format can be set by defining the output format (the signature is then computed to fit this output format), or by setting the signature (output format is then computed).
Put as much source pages into the destination page of the given size (note that margins are ignored when computing this; if margins are set (see below), the resulting file might be larger than the required format).
Same as above, but with custom paper size.
Width
Height
Size of the destination pages (e.g. 2x3): this represents the number of sheets you will get after having cut each printed sheet.
Width
Height
More options…
Resize input pages If set, input pages will be resized before being imposed.
Same as above, but with custom paper size.
Width
Height
Scale
Repeat input file Set this to act as if your file was repeated several times. It might be useful with some layouts, or useless with others…
Repeat
Binding edge
Bind
Last pages Number of pages to keep as last pages. Useful to keep the back cover as a back cover.
Last pages
Group paper sheets If set, repeat the cutting-folding instructions above for every group of sheets. You get several sections, that you have to bind together to get a proper book.
Sheets
Margins
Input margin
Output margin
Add marks?

Step 4: Go!

Step 5: Print, fold, bind…

How-to process resulting PDF with copycutfold.
  1. Print the resulting PDF two-sided (binding on the left).
  2. Cut the stack of paper, to get several stacks.
  3. Fold each stack of paper (once).
  4. Bind each stack of paper you got, separately.

If option group is set, follow the steps above, but at step 3, instead of folding each stack of paper at once, fold as many pages as specified by the group option. Then, at step 4, bind the quires together, like a hardcover book.

FAQ

What data are you storing about me? The data we store are:
  • the PDF files you upload (for an hour; see next question);
  • anonymous daily statistics (such as today, XXX files have been processed, totalizing XXX Mb..
That's all. Nothing more.
Who have access to the files I upload here?
  • Short answer: Do not upload here anything you would not want to be public.
  • Long answer: Nobody will look to the files you upload. However:
    • technically, I (the author and maintainer of this website) have access to everything you upload (but I won't bother reading it);
    • although I did my best, there might be security issues, and your files might be publicly accessible without my knowledge;
    • malicious hackers might try and gain access to the server.
    If you are not happy with it, you can use this software locally (see next question).
How can I use this tool locally? You can either:
  • install this webserver locally and run it from your computer;
  • locally install the underlying tools (pdfimpose and pdfautonup). However, as far as I know, no one bothered to build a graphical user interface to them, so you will need to know a bit of command line to use them.
Both solutions require a bit of technical knowledge…
I found a bug. How do I report it? You can either open an issue on Framagit or send me an email: contact(at)pdfimpose(dot)it.
And if I don't speak English? French-speaking users can contact us at the very same address: contact(at)pdfimpose(dot)it. Other languages? Sorry…
I have an idea to improve the user experience: we might just…
  • Short answer: NO!
  • Long answer: I suck at designing easy-to-use applications. I spent ages coding this website, and I would spend hours to implement a tiny improvement. So I probably won't do it. However, if you can do it, I will be happy to merge your pull-request.
Images are barely readable. Wouldn't videos be far more explanatories to explain the different layouts? I wholly agree. But if I were to make them, I would spend hours for deplorable results. But I will be happy to include your videos!

About

This website is a free software, distributed under the GNU Affero General Public licence, version 3 or any later version. You can download the code powering it at Framagit to review it, study it, change it, download it, run it…

This website is built on top of pdfimpose and pdfautonup, which can be used offline.

Contact: contact(at)pdfimpose(dot)it.