Reply To: How can I get saddle stitch to work across several chapters in the book panel?

“It was intended for short booklets that someone would print on an office printer, which as a matter of practicality are usually single documents not more than 20-24 finished pages.”

I was printing out a short booklet that is about 42 pages or about 11 sheets of paper. I was originally told that it would be good to use the book feature even for relatively short documents but now I am almost wishing I had left the whole book in one InDesign document. The booklet will start out with a very low run so I am not ready to send it to a press just yet.

“An InDesign document doesn't “know” (has no metadata that indicates) it is part of a book. That information is in the .indb book file.”

It is kind of odd that InDesign calls the feature “print booklet” and then it doesn’t relate to the book panel! I understand your point on why it doesn’t work though.

“What you can do, if you have Acrobat, is output your book from the book panel as a single PDF, then use Acrobat to print the booklet. Open the file in Acrobat, select File > Print, and then the fun starts.”

Someone suggested that I use a plugin from within InDesign to handle the imposition. Do you think this is something that is necessary for me or are Acrobat’s print features all I need?

Thank you for all your help. I don’t know how else I could have figured this out since InDesign books I have read don’t mention In-Design's booklet printing limitations.