Re: Booklets or anything saddle-stitched

[voxwoman <voxwoman -at- gmail -dot- com>]

I have Acrobat 9 now. I don't know if earlier versions or if Adobe Reader
has this functionality, but Acrobat 9 has a "Booklet Printing" option in the
Page Handling section of the Print dialog box. It arranges the pages in the
document to print as a booklet (shrinking the pages to fit the paper). The
printer has to handle duplex printing, or the factory staff needs to be
clever enough to do it manually.

-Wendy

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 2:18 PM, McLauchlan, Kevin <
Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> wrote:

> I have no control (nor even knowledge) about what they have on the
> factory floor. I'm also many hundreds of miles away in another country.
> And at another company - since most production and fulfillment is
> performed by a contract manufacturer (so one-off printing would occur on
> _their_ factory floor).
>
> The Product Manager does like color, so that stays.  Printing in the
> factory is intended only for low-volume products, where it doesn't make
> sense to add the complications and expense of going out to a third-party
> print-services supplier. Some products always fall into that category
> (niche stuff or very expensive stuff), and some start out that way, and
> switch over when the product gets industry recognition and sales take
> off.
>
>
>
> I'm just wondering if I need to concern myself with the output file to
> make life easier for those who will have to print it.
>
>
>
> What's "normal"?
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Gina Jones [mailto:gina -dot- techwriter -at- gmail -dot- com]
> Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 13:42
> To: McLauchlan, Kevin
> Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Re: Booklets or anything saddle-stitched
>
>
>
> I think 8.5 X 5.5 is your best option. However, I would recommend that
> they upgrade the printer on the factory floor to a more high-end that
> handles stapling, including saddle-stitching. Then, the guy on the floor
> would only need to grab the print-outs and fold.
>
> The high-end printer can be leased and you could switch to black and
> white from color to off-set the cost. Of course, the "pretty" cover
> would need to be simple and gray-scale....
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Gina Jones
> Technical Communications Consultant
> (404) 271-1382
>
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 1:30 PM, McLauchlan, Kevin
> <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> wrote:
>
> Here's your situation. How do you approach it?
>
> All your major docs for your company's combined hardware-and-software
> products are no longer printed. You make PDFs or WebHelp. Customers need
> _something_ printed to tell them where to start, when they first open
> the box. Some time ago, for this purpose, you created a picture-heavy
> QuickStart Guide sheet. Well, actually it was three sheets,
> double-sided, corner-stapled and tossed in the box where it would be the
> first thing found by a customer. The QSG was done on a color laser
> printer on the factory floor. For the unionized factory workers, the
> required Work Instruction (made by some guy who coordinates getting
> product from Development and QA into production) was quite simple. Open
> the file in Adobe Reader, select Print, select two-sided long-edge,
> click [Print], grab printout, line up the pages, staple the upper-left
> corner, toss in box, close box, affix shipping label.....
>
> Somebody thinks stapled set of pages looks way too "homemade".  They
> want to shrink the format to half the size (so a few more pages) and
> fold and staple as a booklet, with a pretty cover.
>
> You need to produce a document:
>
>
>
> a) that you won't print, but
>
> b) that might be printed by a factory worker or
>
> c) that might be printed by a printing services company (as product
> sales volume increases)
>
> d) that should most likely use standard-size paper (US-letter or A4)
> folded in half and nested
>
> e) that should require no cutting (at least not for factory-floor
> workers).
>
> And it should be just one version; otherwise the people who are forced
> to double up the number of Bills of Materials will be annoyed.
>
> For small-volume, as-needed, the factory worker will be doing the doc on
> a laser printer, so the layout must work to make the pages come together
> properly - all right-side-up and properly paginated when nested and
> stapled.
>
> For larger volumes, an employee of a third-party printing services
> company would have access to automatic imposition software that would
> accept a standard sequentially paged book file (PDF) and take care of
> creating the signatures for whatever paper size they preferred.
>
>
>
> Is that roughly the situation today?  I haven't dealt with printed books
> or booklets since the 1990s, so I'm a little out of touch.
>
> My simplest solution is to just pretend that printing will always be
> professionally done, and supply a straight-ahead book file of 8.5 x 5.5
> pages, sequentially numbered, and wash my hands of the whole thing. I
> could suggest that the operations people acquire a copy of ClickBook or
> similar software and print from that. The guy who writes Work
> Instructions would need to install the program in the factory, and learn
> it well enough to write a bullet-proof WI around it.
>
>
>
> Am I over-thinking, or thinking in the wrong directions?
>
>
>
>  - Kevin
>
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