Reformatting help!

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

So, I've got a copy of Toward Land, Work, Power as a .pdf, laid out as 160 vertical 8.5"x11" (North American standard letter size) pages. What I'd like to figure out is how to turn into a 'zine-format landscape 4 pages per double sided 8.5"x11" sheet.

Is there a program that will do this for me? Will I have to print it and do it manually with a photocopier? Ideas?

[BIXX]

I can do it for you. It'll take me a while though. (I do it with open office)

Indesign, if you know how to use it, can work. I am, unfortunately, really bad at indesign.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus

Scribus is an Open Source program that brings professional page layout to Linux, BSD UNIX, Solaris, OpenIndiana, GNU/Hurd, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp 4, eComStation, Haiku and Windows desktops with a combination of press-ready output and new approaches to page design.

Underneath a modern and user-friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as color separations, CMYK and spot colors, ICC color management, and versatile PDF creation.

[HoboHomesteader]

some printers have a "booklet" setting that will format for you.

[The Idler]

Seconded the booklet setting.

[BIXX]

I don't think my printer does- it can't even print double sided without human help.

[HoboHomesteader]

you might be able to format it for single side printing, but just print the odd pages, flip them and print the even pages on the other side.

[BIXX]

you might be able to format it for single side printing, but just print the odd pages, flip them and print the even pages on the other side.

That's what I meant by human help. I print booklets every now and then and it sucks pretty bad.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

The issue is moreso resizing/realigning than it is printing.
Worst case scenario, I guess I could do it painfully and manually on a photocopier. Sigh.

(Er, unless Scribus can do it)

[BIXX]

If I have enough ink (I'm buying some soon) I could prolly do it. It'd take me a few days (2-4), but I could send it to you in whatever format you want I believe. (Especially PDF, .doc, or .odf)

[BIXX]

If I have enough ink (I'm buying some soon) I could prolly do it. It'd take me a few days (2-4), but I could send it to you in whatever format you want I believe. (Especially PDF, .doc, or .odf)

Oh, scratch the ink part :P

[ckaihatsu]

This may be seen as an "opportunity" for comrades to learn some basics of (now-freeware) desktop publishing -- it's the modern-day equivalent of the printing press, and so is a good skillset to have for making propaganda, etc.

So, preaching aside, here are a couple of links -- as with anything new, take some time out, "play" with the software, do simple, sample projects at first, be patient, etc.


http://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus

http://fontmatrix.be/

[The Idler]

You might also want to try Advanced PDF Tools
http://www.verypdf.com/app/advanced-pdf-tools/
I bought a license and it worked great

[ckaihatsu]

For basic page-type operations on PDFs there's the free, cross-platform PDF Split and Merge:

http://www.pdfsam.org/


PDF Shuffler is Linux-only:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfshuffler/