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Inhouse setup for 5-up print

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    • #54536
      Vincent2
      Member

      Hi everyone.

      I had a job to setup, print and trim over 300 invitational postcards in my office. I already made a PDF for the postcards by using data merge, and wanted to place 5 postcards (3 vertically on the top and 2 horizontally at the bottom) on an A3 sheet (landscape). Because it is different to how I normally setup a 5-up print, I had to place and move each page manually to achieve this. What would be the best way to approach this the next time? Thanks in advance.

      Vincent2

    • #54548
      David Blatner
      Keymaster

      I don't have a great answer for this, but I have a sense that it might be easier to use Data Merge to create a PDF file just 1-up… that is, each page just has one postcard. Then impose the PDF with one of the many imposition programs on the market, or place the pages of the PDF back into a new ID file in the form you want them.

    • #54567
      Vincent2
      Member

      Hi David.

      Thank you very much, I appreciate your reply. I tried placing the pages of the PDF back into a new ID file, but it still takes quite a lot of manual moving. I will try my best to explain how I ended setting it up:

      – I data merged the postcards to create a PDF (1-up).
      – Using this postcard PDF, I placed all the pages into my A3 document using the PDFplacer script.
      – Since this script places every PDF on its own page, I had to manually move each postcard so that I had 5 cards on every A3 page.
      – On my A3 document master page, I created 5 image frames the size of the postcards (3 vertically on the top and 2 horizontally at the bottom).
      – For each page, I then rotated 3 postcards to 90 degrees (because there are 3 vertically).
      – I then used the swapitems script to replace the image frames with the postcard.

      Whew! Hope I didn't confuse you. As you can tell, this wasn't the most efficient way of going about it.

      What imposition programs do you recommend? Thanks. =)

    • #54631

      after reading the post, i'm assuming that the sheet was set up to have two postcards landscape and three postcards portrait (or vice versa) to fit on the sheet. there is a solution but its massively convoluted and complicated involving excel, acrobat, bridge and indesign. in layman's terms it involves taking the merged single-page pdf and splitting it into individual files renamed in bridge to have filenames of 001.pdf, 002.pdf, etc. from there, a datamerge file has to be made in excel with card1, card2, card3, card4, card5 header and then the 001.pdf 002.pdf etc underneath. once that's done, make ANOTHER merge file but make it merge into how you want the template imposed.

      i was going to write the steps out but it was two pages long! i hope you can understand the gist of what i've written.

      its not something that can easily be done in a cheaper imposition program as they don't tend to do ganging like this. more expensive software like dynastrip or preps will do it easily but those programs cost thousands of dollars and are print industry standard, and not necessarily a solution for this particular issue.

    • #54667
      Vincent2
      Member

      Hi Colin.

      Thanks for your reply and workaround. =)

      You've lost me when you said the merged PDF needs to be split into individual files in bridge. How do you achieve this in bridge? Other than that, I sort of know what you are trying to do.

      I would love to hear your step-by-step method, even if it is two pages long. Thanks.

    • #54668

      the batch rename feature in bridge is one of the things i really love about bridge. its actually the only reason i really use it.

      navigate to a particular folder using bridge so that the files to be renamed are visible. from here, click on the tools menu and then click batch rename.

      a new dialog box will appear and within this box are several options on how to rename all the files in that folder. next to the options there are plus and minus signs which either add or remove file naming options. for the example in question, only the “sequence number” option needs to be present with three digits option at the end. to see if these options are going to work, there is a preview of how the renamed files will look at the bottom of the dialog box. at the top of the dialog box there's also the ability to copy to other folder so that if the renaming didn't work, it hasn't ruined the originals.

      breaking the one 300 page file up into 300 one page files and naming them 001.pdf; 002.pdf etc is important for the datamerge onto a 5-up template as (AFAIK) datamerge won't reference pages in a multipage pdf file, just the first page.

      hope this helps :D

    • #54677
      Firedog
      Member

      I had a job to setup, print and trim over 300 invitational postcards in my office. I already made a PDF for the postcards by using data merge, and wanted to place 5 postcards (3 vertically on the top and 2 horizontally at the bottom) on an A3 sheet (landscape). Because it is different to how I normally setup a 5-up print, I had to place and move each page manually to achieve this. What would be the best way to approach this the next time? Thanks in advance.


      Could you do two print runs? Create two ID files, one portrait 420 mm x (the length of a postcard + a bit) for three cards and the other landscape 420 x (the width of a postcard + a bit) for two. Place one postcard at the top/left of the page as appropriate and then datamerge the variable content (1-180 on the first, 181-300 on the second). Work out the orientation and placement of the output, then print the first file, reload the paper and print the other. You'd probably need generous bleed allowances…

    • #54730
      Vincent2
      Member

      Hi Firedog.

      That is an excellent idea! I will try that out for my next inhouse print job. Thanks for the reply. =)

    • #54861
      nick lamme
      Member

      You should check out croptima InPlate. There is a lot of versitility with respect to page size, columns, rows, etc. It may do the trick, that is, unless I misunderstand what you need.

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