Imposition of Postscript files?

["Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Kandis Weiner, a fellow Montrealer  (any relation to "Rose"? <g>),
wonders: <<I have been tasked with finding a software program that
will compose PostScipt files to our postscript enabled printer...
This software program should be able to compose the files so that we
can output to different formats like saddle stitch books or
thumbnails.>>

There are a variety of solutions, ranging from free to prohibitively
expensive. What you're looking for is called "page imposition"
software, and a Web search should turn up tons of info. It's also
called "stripping" software, but you probably don't want to try that
keyword on a Web search. <g>

The "free" version of the solution comes with most DTP software,
since Postscript-enabled software generally lets you (via one of the
options in the Postscript printer driver) specify the output of
thumbnails. I'm pretty sure that PageMaker comes with an add-on
utility that let you print certain types of booklets. Even if it
doesn't, you can probably develop your own simple templates to
accomodate most designs (e.g., four-up and eight-up): all you need to
do is take a single piece of the paper you'll be printing on, fold it
into the desired shape, write the words "Page X" at the bottom each
page, then unfold it. The words you've written give you your map for
how to create the template (i.e., page sequence and orientation). You
can export the page files as .eps, then drop them into the template,
or create the stories directly in the template, depending on the
software you're using.

If you want to accomplish the same goal with much less work, look
into "ClickBooks" (Clikbooks? Bookmaker?), which is relatively
inexpensive and automates most of this work. I'm kinda vague on the
details, but I believe it works with MSWord and PageMaker, among
others, and it's gotten good reviews in various computer magazines.
You can probably find a review at www.pcmag.com or www.macworld.com
(that's where I remember reading about the product). Hopefully, some
others can provide more-correct details.

If you want to go the full monty, check out a product such as
"Impostrip" (no details come to mind) or Adobe Presswise, which let
you do everything up to calculating and accounting for binding creep
based on paper thickness. But that's serious production software,
with a serious (multi-thousand $) price tag. Reviews should be
available from _Publish_'s web site (www.publish.com).
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"Patience comes to those who wait."--Anon.

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