#Printing a booklet in word for mac how to#

My task was to find a substitute for PrintChef, as running OS 9 was no longer a feasible alternative (apparently it keeps crashing the computer). Unfortunately PrintChef has not been ported to OS X, and at this point, it seems unlikely that it ever will be. Now, my friends previously used PrintChef in OS 9, which would reorder the pages and also stretch the text to fill out that extra top/bottom margin. If you are printing a very thick booklet, and folding it in half, you also need to worry about creep-the outside pages need a bigger gutter in the middle because they are being folded so thickly. To solve this issue, I used a custom page size of 5.5x8.5, instead of simply shrinking an 8.5x11 document. So if you design two 8.5x11 pages, and print them 2-up, the half-piece is proportionally taller than the full-size piece, meaning you get extra blank margin at the top and bottom of the half-piece. When you print two pages per sheet (also called 2-up) on a letter-size piece of paper, the text obviously needs to be shrunk. This is called imposition, and a number of OS X programs have been developed specifically to take care of this (listed below). The pages need to be re-ordered so that folding in half produces the right order. There are several issues involved in making booklets that are created by folding standard letter paper in half. Text boxes can be complicated, and at least two of the booklet programs are free. It's much easier to use one of the booklet programs, especially if you are not already familiar with text boxes in MS Word. Note: It is sometimes suggested using linked text boxes.

This is by no means an authoritative article, but recently I was helping someone develop a workflow for creating booklets, and here are the results of my experimentation. My discussion here, if you choose to read it, explains what is going on in the booklet-making process, discusses your options for booklet programs, notes some possible pitfalls with duplex printing, and offers some cosmetic refinements.

use one of the OS X booklet programs to shuffle the pages around and place them 2-up.

create your document in Word (or Pages) as you normally would.

#Printing a booklet in word for mac how to#

How to print a bunch of pages that you can fold in half and staple to create a booklet.įor a quick-and-easy booklet using standard letter paper: