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Laying out Pages on a Sheet

PDFClerk offers great flexibility in how you can lay out pages onto sheets.

Creating a margin-less two-up layout:

As an example we will create a layout that exactly fits two 7 x 8.5 inch pages side by side onto a sheet of US Legal sized paper:

  1. Open the source document.
  2. Select the factory provided 2-up layout. [Tools→Impositions→Template→Impose 2 pages per sheet side ⌥⌘2]
  3. Open the document settings panel. [File→Document Settings… ⌃⌥⌘D]
  4. Select the Imposition tab.
  5. From the Size popup menu in the Sheet Dimensions box select Fixed Size….
  6. In the Hor and Ver fields enter the dimensions of legal sized paper (resp. "8.5 in" x "14 in").
  7. Ensure the margins for both even and odd sheets are all 0.
  8. Exit the Document Settings panel by clicking OK.
  9. Export to a new PDF document. [File→Export to PDF→Single File… ⌃⌘S]

Note: Alternatively, instead of changing the sheet size in the document settings dialog to a fixed size, you can skip steps 5 and 6 above to leave it automatic, and change the sheet size from the application's Page Setup settings by selecting File→Page Setup… [⇧⌘P] instead.

The above example assumes default application settings. In particular:

Controlling the gutter (margin) between pages on a sheet:

If your layout will be folded or trimmed along the fold lines and you need to increase (or decrease) the distance between slots (pages) along the fold lines, then you need to adjust the imposition template, or create a new imposition template with the relevant settings. For example, with a two up layout:

  1. Open the Impositions Editor. [⌃⌥⌘i]
  2. Select the factory provided 2-up template in the list, or create a new template with the same settings.
  3. Set the Gather columns into groups of property to 1.
  4. Enter the required gutter size.
  5. Exit the editor saving the template by clicking OK.
  6. If necessary. Select the new (or adjusted) layout template to activate it.
Specifying a gutter

See also

Migrating a Document to Another Page Size
Layout Topics