How to create brochures

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It is possible in NeoOffice to print brochures. This involves re-ordering, scaling and rotating pages of a document so that when printed it can be folded and stapled into a brochure or booklet. A good description of the process is available at Making booklets with psbook and psnup.

Unfortunately in NeoOffice (and OpenOffice) it is not obvious how to configure the printer settings to achieve the desired results. Various third party solutions are listed on this page Word:mac Booklets: Print and Fold.

I haven't tried all of them, but have found CocoaBooklet to work well. It runs as a service and is accessible from the PDF menu in the Print... dialogue of any application. Best of all it can save two files, one for odd pages, one for evens, which is ideal if you don't have a duplex option on your printer.

A4 & A5 Brochures

Starting with document with A4 portrait pages, you'll end up with an A5 sized booklet (ie A4 folded in half).

  • Click the Page Preview button (blank page with magnifying glass) or select File->Page Preview
  • Click the Print Option Page View button (printer with a pointing hand in front of it)
  • The Print Options dialogue opens.
  • Make sure the settings say Rows: 1 Columns: 2 then change the Format to Landscape.
  • You should see the preview on the right hand side of the window change to a large grey landscape page split in two. Click OK.
  • Select File->Print... or type Command-P (don't use any of the printer icons on the screen as they will not allow you to choose the correct options in the next stage).
  • Choose your printer specific options (including Duplex printing if you have it).
  • Click Print (if your printer can't duplex choose Preview and then print the odd and even sides from within Preview.app)
  • In the Printer Options window that appears select the Brochure option in the Pages section.
  • Click OK.

CD Booklets

These are best produced within NeoOffice. Here is the procedure:

  • In Format-Page define a page that is 12 by 12cm
  • Create your booklet with the pages in the order 1,2,3,4,...,12
  • In File-Printer Settings... define a custom page size that is 24 by 12cm, then select this new page size before clicking OK.
  • Select File-Print (do not use the Print toolbar button as the options dialogue will not be displayed)
  • Choose your printer specific options
  • Click Preview
  • On the Print Options dialogue that is now displayed near the middle under the Pages heading there is an option called Brochure. Click this box and Neo will do lots of page rearranging for you.

The next steps take place in Preview.

  • Do not click Print!
  • Instead select File-Print, then under Paper Handling(1) select Even numbered pages.
  • Wait for all the pages to print, then repeat the above step but select Odd numbered pages.

It is important that you don't print directly from NeoOffice as it doesn't centre the image on the page, so when you print the second side it won't line up. Preview centres small pages automatically.

There is more discussion of this subject on the Trinity Forums

(1) Paper Handling is found on the third menu down in the Print dialogue (click the item that say Copies and Pages)

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