DTP Tools, the makers of plug-ins such as History, Keyboard Shortcuts, and Cross References has a trick up their sleeve that they’re about to release on the industry: The ability to rotate whole spreads 90 degrees to make vertical spreads — where one page is on top of the other. They recently announced that this feature will be in the 2.0 upgrade to their already-impressive Page Control plug-in.
Page Control 1.0 currently does the impossible by allowing you to have more than one page size in a document. Want a letterhead page next to a business card-sized page? No problem. Or five different sized ads in a single document? Or a tri-fold with the last panel appropriately more narrow than the rest? No problem. It’s only 59 euros (about US$85 these days) and it seems to work quite well, even when exporting PDF files for print.
But DTP Tools recently announced on their forum that version 2.0 will support vertical spreads suitable for making calendars. They also noted that it will be available pretty soon! I would say, “watch that space (and this one) for more news.”
I can’t imagine how they are doing this, but at first I didn’t believe Page Control would work either. It reminds me of that classic line in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland:
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”
“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
My hat’s off to them for making impossible things somehow possible. I look forward to testing the plug-in (and hearing from any of you who will be testing it).
This article was last modified on December 18, 2021
This article was first published on December 23, 2007
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