Intermixed Size Printing, aka Master Pages - LONG

[John Posada <JPosada -at- book -dot- com>]

Hi, guys...remember the discussion we had about printing letter and ledger
size output intermixed from the same file.

It can be done. Yesterday, offlist, I received a solution from someone we'll
call Ian Scheitle (because that's his name).

OK..this will create, from FM, a PDF with letter size appearing letter size,
ledger appearing ledger size, and when printed from the PDF, will select the
proper bin for each size as appropriate, intermixed.

Part 1 - Frame (this part was mine)

1) I created two FM files, which I use as style templates. One called
LetterSizeOutput and one called LedgerSizeOutput. 
2) For LetterSize, I create a set of master pages using page size format of
8=1/2X11 and a correspondiong set of master pages in 11Z17 size.
3) I then imported all styles and formats except for Page layout settings. I
now had an identical set of style pages except one was for letter and one
for ledger.

Part 2 - Frame (this part was mine)
1) In my case, many individual files contained content, some suited both for
letter size and some for ledger. Prior to this process, I was outputing all
ledger, some one column flow per page and some two column flow per page.
2) For every break in the format, letter to ledger, or reverse, I made a
copy of this file, numbered xxxx1.fm, xxxxx2.fm, etc. The max was 6.
3) I then opened up the first file and deleted everything after the format
change, then the second and deleted everything except the second change, the
third everything except the 3rd format change. I now had up to 6 files, 1-6,
with only one page orientation in each in the same sequence as the original
file.
4) I opened each file and imported the Page Layout ONLY setting as
appropriate from either from either LetterSizeOutput or LedgerSizeOutput.

Part 3 - Frame - Print (this is where Ian's process comes in.
1) To create a complete PDF, use the print to file, not the "save as"
method. 
2) Before printing, set up the printer properties to accommodate the largest
page size used in the book. In my case it is 11x17 with the orientation set
to landscape. 
3) Then print to file and distill. Apparently the distiller still picks up
page size or bounding box info and crops the page to the correct size in the
resulting PDF file. The advantage is that all of the bookmarks and hypertext
are functional because the file was generated in a single pass. 

This has been successful for a number of books generated with Frame 5.5.6
and 7, Acrobat 5.05, on Win2K. Some PDFs include a mix of Letter, Tabloid,
and Arch C pages, all created as a single PDF. 

4) The next problem is to get it to print on a printer in a single pass.. 

The next step is the key

5) From Adobe Acrobat, select File>Print, then click on the "Advanced..."
button at the bottom of the print dialog. In the Advanced print settings
dialog check the "Choose Output Tray by PDF page size." Click OK and then
set up the Printer Properties to accommodate the largest page size in the
PDF file. Click Ok to print. 


Guys...this works. My network printer, an HP, is merrily printing my
document on 3 hole punched punched, in correct order, using correct paper

Thanks you Ian.

John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
Barnes&Noble.com
jposada -at- book -dot- com
212-414-6656
icq: 178047452
aim: jposada1
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  Who died maintaining his right of way-
  He was right, dead right, as he sped along
  But he's just as dead as if he were wrong
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