Some functions which may not be immediately obvious.
Quite Imposing uses the current units that you have selected in Acrobat Preferences ( Edit > Preferences > General or Acrobat > Preferences > General ). These may be inches, mm, or points. These are used consistently, except that type size is always measured in points.
On any screen where you can type a measurement, you can type a simple fraction using the "/" key. For instance you can type 3/8, and this will be converted to 0.375.
Use the standard Acrobat functions. For instance, open the first document and use Document > Insert Pages to add successive documents to the end. The Quite Imposing function Insert Blank Pages may be useful if you have to pad out pages to an odd boundary. There's no need to save this merged document - you can go directly to imposition.
Another useful Acrobat function that many people miss is that you can arrange pages using drag and drop. Open the thumbnail view (in recent versions of Acrobat, the Pages palette). You can drag from the page number under the thumbnail to rearrange a document. If you open two documents side-by-side you can copy pages between the documents by dragging thumbnails.
To make an imposition which is more than a 2-up booklet you will probably need to plan the imposition. Typically impositions are made using Shuffle Pages For Imposing , then n-Up Pages . A common planning technique is to make a "folding model", where the sheet is folded as it is intended before trimming, then the pages are numbered. Most impositions repeat themselves after the first 1 or 2 sheets. Consider the front and back as consecutive sheets.
Once you have unfolded your labelled plan, you need to decide how to re-order the pages on it. Each sheet will be imposed left to right, then top to bottom. You use Shuffle Pages For Imposing to re-order the pages to match the required order, and it will repeat the order as often as required. It can turn pages by 90,180, or 270 degrees and add blank sheets if required.
Then, n-Up Pages is used. It can be used to add margins around the page, crop marks, spacing between rows and columns ("gutter"), as it places the page. It can be used to impose onto a background sheet, e.g. with colour bars on it. Optionally n-up pages will trim sheets so they have no extra space around them. The n-up function can handle pages of different sizes, and will pack them in as tightly as it can.
You might also use Trim And Shift to add binding offsets, make page sizes uniform, or allow for "creep". This is usually done first, before Shuffle Pages.
The entries Shuffle Pages For Imposing , then n-Up Pages include a number of worked examples.
You may want to shift even and odd pages by different amounts in order to allow for space lost in binding. You can easily do this with Trim And Shift .
You can do imposition via n-Up Pages , Step And Repeat or Manual Imposition and select a background. This is a PDF file whose pages will be placed behind the imposition in each case. Once a background is defined (see Using backgrounds ) you can select it as easily as a page size.
The easiest way to do this is to use n-Up Pages . You should select the following options:
Each page will be placed on a large sheet, perhaps adding marks at each corner, then all extra space will be trimmed from the sheet except that defined by your margins.
You may want to split even and odd pages for printing separately. This is easy with Shuffle Even/Odd Pages , which has the option to create two documents.
The Stick On Text and Numbers function can be used to add page numbers, and also text before and after such as a prefix of "Plate ", and " of 16"after. If required, you can use this function to just stick on text - the number can be suppressed. If producing colour separations, make sure to select Use Registration Colour Instead of Black to get a label on each plate. The registration colour is set using Imposition Preferences .
The term "Bates Stamps" is used to refer to numbering pages in documents. This can also be done with Stick On Text and Numbers . Notice that Bates Stamps often require numbers with leading zeroes, like 000123. If you type a number in this form, Quite Imposing will make sure all your stamps have the right number of leading zeroes.
If you have created a booklet you may want to print it on large sheets with enough room for several copies of the booklet. You can do this by first creating the booklet, then using the Step And Repeat function on the resulting document.
First use Stick On Masking Tape to conceal the existing numbers, then use Stick On Text and Numbers .
After applying the tape, you can use Remember Last Action . When you use Playback Action that arrangement of tape will be shown, ready for you to press the Apply button. You can also use Automation sequences to import one or more masking tape commands from a finished file, to give the sequence a name and apply to other files.
Using Imposition Info you can delete a page from an imposition, by clicking on it, then clicking Delete . Once this is done you can switch to Manual Imposition and insert a replacement. Note that in the current release the crop marks from the first placed page are not removed.
The term "creep" refers to an effect caused by the thickness of paper. When a number of sheets are folded over, those on the inside will appear to have the contents closer to the outside edge of the page.
You can use Trim And Shift to shift a range of pages by a variable amount, including doing the "back and forth" shifting necessary for creep.
Sometimes printers like to also allow for folding of paper along other edges; processes often called bottling and shingling. It is not easy to allow for these in Quite Imposing.
Select Sheets will not be trimmed on the first screen, then use the Align button on the third screen.
Many Quite Imposing functions, like Trim And Shift , Stick On Text and Numbers or Stick On Masking Tape let you process even and odd separately. If you need to use a different function, which doesn't have this option, use Shuffle Even/Odd Pages once to split into two files, manipulate each file, and then Shuffle Even/Odd Pages to join the two halves together again.
Using Imposition Info you can extract pages from an imposition. You should consider this as a last resort, not a normal part of your work-flow, as extracted pages are often much larger files than the original page.
Try and understand what each of the components of Quite Imposing will do. You may need to string together several different actions, as described above in "How do I plan an imposition" to get the end result you need. Always remember that since the actions produce a PDF document you can apply more actions to it. Don't be afraid to experiment - you will be able to check your results on screen before committing them to film or plate. Use Automation sequences or Remember Last Action to save the more complicated settings so you can use them again.
Also read When not to use Quite Imposing , to see if what you want to do isn't really in the scope we intended.