I need a tool to impose PDF files 2-up on a page where I take two different files of the same length and print them side-by-side. The purpose to to cut by iGen click charges in half by printing my 8.5x11 books, two up and then cutting in half. If I needed multiple copies of the same book, this would not be an issue but I need a single copy of multiple books.

Any suggestions?

Any PDF imposition tool I've seen has been an Acrobat plug-in, and so would require that you combine the PDFs, interleaving the pages, to do what you want.

If there is a true stand-alone imposition tool that can work with multiple PDF sources, I'd sure we'd all like to know about it!

Use the "Cut and Stack" method. If your two documents are exactly the same length and you add them to your run list one after another it will end up with the first book being in the first stack and the second book on the other stack.

I believe the built in imposition on the DocuSP can do this for you without any additional software. The Fiery RIP can also do it if you have it. You can combine jobs on the Fiery if you have the Compose feature. I don't think you can combine separate jobs into a single one on the DocuSP. So you would have to combine them before submitting them. Easy to do with PDFs.

The beauty of this is that you don't need to have the exact same number of sheets in both books. You just need to put a divider page or something so you can separate the two books easily after it is cut. Just cut it, put stack A on stack B and then separate where the divider is. If there is an obvious title page then you don't need a divider. If they are duplex you may have to add blanks to your document to maintain proper pagination.

Preps (Creo/Kodak) is one imposition program that is not an Acrobat plugin. If you have FusionPro you can get it to do the imposition but that is a lot more work to setup.

Kodak Preps can do this (Multiple PDF files --> Imposed PDF). It can also do Multiple PS/PDF --> Imposed PS. Standalone, there's PC and Mac versions (dongle protected). It gives you control over creep if you are doing multibind books.

Costs a bit, though. And the learning curve is a bit steep.

vipp
do you have docusp?
if so use the impo software there it works great
jim

jim,

does docusp still work as a "blind" imposer? or do they now have a gui for the imposition?

-john