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.

Have been in prepress work since 1997. Involved in sheet-fed offset printing, so everything from business cards to large 1,000 page books to cartons. Have seen digital repro go from running out bromides to an old spectraset with level 1 postscript; to making plates with an A1 CTP using composite PDFs.

Have to say this website is probably the source for anything related to InDesign. If there's a question which can't be answered in the topics or the forums, i'd say that Adobe probably wouldn't know the answer either.

have you tried this application from rorohiko?

https://www.rorohiko.com/wordpr…..-exporter/

have a client at the moment who needed to take his indesign art and ship it as a word file to several authors who don't have (and won't get) indesign. the exportallstories.jsx crashed cs4 several times but this app did the trick… to word at least. don't know how you'd go to excel but thought you might appreciate the heads-up.

have you tried this application from rorohiko?

https://www.rorohiko.com/wordpr…..-exporter/

have a client at the moment who needed to take his indesign art and ship it as a word file to several authors who don't have (and won't get) indesign. the exportallstories.jsx crashed cs4 several times but this app did the trick… to word at least. don't know how you'd go to excel but thought you might appreciate the heads-up.

i have this drama all the time when i'm sending pdfs to suppliers with older RIPs (i.e. they can't take my imposed file from my RIP which contains my spot colours such as diecut, score, spot uv varnish, foil, emboss, etc). its a nusiance and i wish they'd upgrade their RIPs, but until that time this is what i do:

1) take the pdf into indesign. if its one page just go file, place. if its several pages or an entire book worth of spot varnishes, use the multipageimporter2.2.1 which is available from https://creativepro.com…..downloads/

2) go file, print. prepare the appropriate page size and marks as normal, but make sure that the file is prepared as separations and only select the separation you want to send the supplier. i normally print to a ps file and then distill this with acrobat distiller.

this is normally all i need to do BUT if i get a supplier who THEN says “all text has to be converted to curves” (man i hate it when they ask that – grrr), THEN i take the pdf into illustrator and convert all text to paths and save out as an eps.

IMHO this is a nusiance because each time i have to take additional steps in preparing for these suppliers' draconian specs, i stand a very good chance of destroying the digital integrity of the file, and make it more likely to accidentally foul up the artwork. i put it this way: any supplier which CAN accept files which DON'T have to be set up as black/converted to curves etc… will receive more of our business.

i have this drama all the time when i'm sending pdfs to suppliers with older RIPs (i.e. they can't take my imposed file from my RIP which contains my spot colours such as diecut, score, spot uv varnish, foil, emboss, etc). its a nusiance and i wish they'd upgrade their RIPs, but until that time this is what i do:

1) take the pdf into indesign. if its one page just go file, place. if its several pages or an entire book worth of spot varnishes, use the multipageimporter2.2.1 which is available from https://creativepro.com…..downloads/

2) go file, print. prepare the appropriate page size and marks as normal, but make sure that the file is prepared as separations and only select the separation you want to send the supplier. i normally print to a ps file and then distill this with acrobat distiller.

this is normally all i need to do BUT if i get a supplier who THEN says “all text has to be converted to curves” (man i hate it when they ask that – grrr), THEN i take the pdf into illustrator and convert all text to paths and save out as an eps.

IMHO this is a nusiance because each time i have to take additional steps in preparing for these suppliers' draconian specs, i stand a very good chance of destroying the digital integrity of the file, and make it more likely to accidentally foul up the artwork. i put it this way: any supplier which CAN accept files which DON'T have to be set up as black/converted to curves etc… will receive more of our business.

'll be a real stick in the mud and be old fashioned and stick up for some of these “myths”.

my work uses screen rulings between 150-200 lpi, depending on the stock we're printing on. using the 1.5 x line screen, we DO need pics to be 300dpi for effective output. yes, we can get away with less, but i'd rather get higher res pics than lower res pics… can't really fix low res pics. i might add though, having a GOOD picture @ 300dpi HELPS (a blurry pic @ 300dpi still looks blurry).

“PDFs are fine as long as your have set up your file properly and there are not any changes” I agree with this, but the “set your file up properly” and “not any changes” is rare. Sometimes we do need native files because:

1) customer may be working through a third party and wants us to handle the alterations and any future use of the file (reprints or further alts in future);

2) customer's art may be poorly set up and/or require manipulation in the native file for whatever purpose, rather than mess around with acrobat or enfocus.This can be anything from tidying up inconsistent folio positions; to fixing a dieforme; changing spine widths on covers, or adding FSC logos (which is, according to the accreditation, something the printer does, not the designer).

JPGs are still LOSSY. TIFFs are (meant to be) LOSSLESS. Look, if i receive art where the links are jpgs, i'm not going to change them all to tiffs, because yes they will output fine, but if i'm setting up artwork myself and know i want those digital assets for a while, i'll use tiffs.

rant over. onto myths:

MYTH: all text must be converted to paths (i've seen this from some suppliers)

FACT: hell no! there was a point where i was receiving that many freehand files where fonts just couldn't (or wouldn't load) and without a hard copy to check to, there was no way to ensure that the fonts used were correct (customers were using freehand to make books rather than logos). that might be the only occasion where i'd ask this. for me, text/fonts are not an issue with indesign.

MYTH: for process jobs, all full colour pics must be CMYK, not RGB

FACT: in the pre-sep film days, RGB pics would come out only on the black plate. with composite rips, RGB pics came through as good as the profile that the RIP used, which for a while were fairly bad. with indesign, its possible to make a pdf and force all pics to one colour profile, meaning artwork with entirely RGB pics can have a PDF created which will make all the pics CMYK. i'd STILL prefer that people make their pics CMYK but its not the end of the world if one or two RGBs slip through now that there are two steps to force them to CMYK: indesign, and our RIP with the same profile.