My friend Dave has just moved across to mac and he tells me that in Microsoft publisher you can use a booklet template to make a booklet. By booklet I mean A4 pages folded in half to make an A5 booklet that you staple in the middle. To do this all the pages need to be re-ordered, for example, page 8 goes near page 1, page 2 near page 7 and so on. Publisher did this automatically.
With Pages in OS X there is no such built in option to do this automatically, but there is a great little program called ‘create booklet’ that will do it for you when you go to print the document.
You need to download a little program called ‘Create Booklet’ to do it. You can download it directly from here or go to the webpage here.
After you’ve downloaded it, Click on the ‘install- Create Booket PDF Service’
This will install an extra menu item in your printer menu to be able to print booklets.
After you’ve done this, go into Pages and select print, like you are going to normally print a document. But instead of pressing print (in the bottom right corner of the window) select the ‘PDF’ button in the bottom left, and click on ‘Create Booklet’
Your document will automatically be made into a booklet. It will open in a new window, and you can either ‘save’ it as a PDF file (to email to someone or print out later) or you can print it as a booklet to your printer.
Just remember that when you are designing a booklet, it will be printed smaller than usual. The A4 page you see on your screen will be printed on 1/2 an A4 page when you make a booklet, so make all the text a bit bigger than usual. Eg use a 16 point font instead of 12.
Note: There was an application called ‘Cocoa Booklet’ that used to do this but it doesn’t work in Snow Leopard, this is the new way of doing it.
Note: If you want to publish a book, and need a more professional binding solution try this program (it’s not free).
The ideal outcome would be a solution of the problem with no single individual having to think all that hard. ,
Yes I agree it’s a shame it’s not built in. I’m not sure why it’s not.
Great solution! A few years back I found you could create booklets using OpenOffice and posted about it on my blog. http://russellings.blogspot.com/2008/02/printing-a5-brochures-using-openoffice.html. That’s even a non-mac solution.
Hi Wayne,
Really sorry to contact you on here, but not sure how else to get to you.
I am trying to use your picture perfect word press template for a website.
It says I need to install and activate the page-links-to plugin. Done, installed and activated, but the template still comes up with the same message.
Any suggestions?
Please contact me at renae.scurr@mortgagechoice.com.au.
Thanks!
Renae.
[...] this article ? Click here to for how to make a pdf booklet. [...]
Adobe Reader* has an option for Booklet Printing under the Page Scaling menu in the Print dialog box.
*version 9 so OK for MacOS X 10.4.11 & later, don’t think earlier versions have it.
This is fantastic – thanks for this! For some reason when I convert it to a booklet file it says that it’s not universal and to ask the developer. I’ll keep slogging through the internet to find a solution…
Thanks, At last I can print booklets!#
LOL
WOW. Finally I can easily print a booklet, without all the drama.
Thanks a lot.
have tried using this to print a booklet but when I save it to PDF it merges two pages onto one leaving one side blank. Anyone have any ideas how to fix this?
I’m sorry guys but I’ve downloaded the program and still can’t print in booklet format as 50% of the pages are upside down. PLEASE HELP ME!
I have not been able to get it to work. Using Lion, latest Word for Mac and pages are grouped wrong with intermittent skipping or blank pages. Created document in Word, saved to pdf and trying to create booklet from pdf. Duplex printing with reversal was closest to success.
I have the same problem. I have Lion, created doc in Numbers, and when I click Create Booklet it is converted to a PDF, but it leaves pages blank that shouldn’t be and does not put them in the right order.
HELP?!
Works great!! First I printed the odd pages, and then put those papers back in my printer and printed the even pages. And voila! A double sided booklet without me having to rearrange a single page!
thanks heaps for this, I always had trouble with printing anything more than a 4 page booklet…
I have produced a staff handbook in A5 and want to print it as a booklet. I have followed the suggestions and downloaded ‘Create a Booklet PDF Service’ and can get one printed.
However it has changed the font size and made it too small. Any suggestions as to how to overcome this?
Well it does make the font smaller as everything reduces from A4 to A5, so you have to allow for this and make everything bigger when you design it, is that what you mean?
I am having the same problem. Not sure how to fix. Can anyone give any suggestions?
This works great when printing a directory from FileMaker Pro. Just set up a custom page size of 5.5 x 8.5. I was able to make a double-sided booklet of 30 pages fit on 8 double-sided pages in a few minutes. Before, it took hours to lay this out by hand. Thanks for some great software.
All I get is:
An error occurred while processing your request.
Reference #97.31951645.1345918760.69de812
or:
An error occurred while processing your request.
Reference #97.f4589140.1345918973.18cbb28
I have a brand new MacBook Pro, updated Office: MAC 2011.
Suggestions?
Link to create a booklet no longer working…
I was looking for it too. A quick 30 second Google and I discover that you can get it from here:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/21068/create-booklet-pdf-service
or the developer’s site here:
http://TheKeptPromise.com/FreeApps.html
Just downloaded Create Booklet program today and created a booklet successfully as one pdf, but preview crashes every time I try and print the booklet. Is there any way around this or am I doing something silly? I am running OSX 10.5.8