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).

To join two or more pdf files together using Preview – the standard pdf viewer in OS X – simply open a pdf in preview and then drag a second pdf file ON TOP OF an existing thumbnail, and the two documents will merge. Read on for step by step instructions.

SUMMARY: To merge the two files you need to drag the new pdf ON TOP OF an existing  thumbnail. If you drag it into the sidebar but not on top of an existing page the new file will be added as an external link – not merged into the original pdf document. See these two pictures below.

Drag the new pdf file under the existing one and it will open but not merge.

Drag the new pdf file on top of the existing one and it will merge.

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Here’s how to do it step by step.

1. Firstly, open one of the pdf files in Preview. Preview is the default application that a pdf will open into so if you just double click on the pdf file it will open in Preview.

2. Now go to the menu at the top of the screen called ‘View’ and click on ‘Sidebar’ (or  ‘Show Sidebar’ if you have Snow Leopard). This will make a sidebar appear on the right side of the window with thumbnails of the pages in it..

In Leopard select 'Sidebar'

In Snow Leopard and newer versions of Preview select 'Sidebar' then 'Show Sidebar'

3. You can now drag the second pdf file (from a folder or from your desktop) into this sidebar window, and it will be added to your pdf document as an additional page.

Drag the new pdf from the desktop onto an existing thumbnail.

To merge the two files you need to drag the new pdf ON TOP OF an existing  thumbnail. If you drag it into the sidebar but not on top of an existing page the new file will be added as an external link – not merged into the original pdf document.See these two pictures below.

Drag the new pdf file under the existing one and it will open but not merge.

Drag the new pdf file on top of the existing one and it will merge.

In some older versions of Preview, if you drag the second file on top of an existing page in the sidebar, it will appear as a red box to show you it will be merged, or as a red line to show you it will not be merged.  In the latest version of preview, the red box does not appear, but the same principle applies – drag it on top of the existing thumbnail to merge the two documents.

You can now save it – use ‘save as’ to save a new document of the merged fles, or you can use use ‘save’ to save over the existing document adding the new pages to it.

Like this article ? Click here to for how to make a pdf booklet.

1. Run the program called PPD installer in the MACOSX folder.

2. Go to System Preferences, Printers & Fax, and click the little + button on the bottom left to add a printer.

3. Select IP Printer, LPD, then type in the IP address of your printer. Then select “Select Printer Software” as follows:

4. Select your printer form the list, click OK.

It works. In fact it’s simpler to setup than it was in Leopard which is nice. Thankyou Canon.

I purchased mine from RIHAC in Melbourne, Australia. They have a good unit, with good instructions as well as good phone support, the sell the CIS system for about $150 and it comes with I think it was 100ml of ink per color. Installing the CIS system is about the same complexity as changing a pushbike tyre, or sewing a button on a shirt. If you can follow instructions, you should be able to install it OK. Mine’s been going about a month with no problems at all.