On Mon 10 Feb 2025 at 16:03:48 (+0000), [email protected] wrote:
> Thanks for the responses. Peter Chubb suggested that I was shrinking the
> scores twice which was something I had begun to suspect. I changed the 'A4'
> to 'A3' in my script and my PDF viewer shows something a bit different from
> what I was getting before. I'll have an opportunity to try printing it
> tomorrow. Using the pdfjam commands Peter sent produced very odd results at
> my end. Maybe there was something missing or something implied which I missed.
I think the reason for that lies in the way you specified the
problem. You wrote:
> > I have a PDF which consists of 16 small scores in A4 landscape.
In fact, you had 16 small scores on A4 portrait, with the music
rotated through 90°, which is why you had to perform your step 1
to make it into landscape.
So your step 2 is essentially the same as Peter's step 1:
> > # stack rotated pages top/bottom
> > pdfjam $1-out.pdf --nup 1x2 --paper A4 --suffix 2up
pdfjam --paper a4paper --nup 1x2 input.pdf
I assume --booklet is performing the same role as --signature,
though the latter would seem more flexible if you were ever
going to produce more than one signature, ie perfect binding
rather than saddle stitch:
> > # re-collate into book signature
> > pdfjam $1-out-2up.pdf --signature $2 --paper a3 --landscape --outfile
> > $1-sig.pdf
pdfjam --landscape --paper a3paper --booklet true input-pdfjam.pdf
> Thanks for the GUI tip from Raphael Mankin, but I'd rather have a script do
> this. Alexander Kobel's point about pdfjam is also good to know.
I take great care with the syntax and order of pdfjam's arguments,
and always use --vanilla to avoid any configuration defaults from
interfering with my script. Otherwise it can do some wacky things
without comment.
> Thank you all. If I haven't fixed it with your suggestions I'll try again.
You could make deciding on your optional step 1 automatic by parsing
the output of pdfinfo:
$ pdfinfo peter-1.pdf | grep 'Page size'
Page size: 792 x 612 pts (letter)
$
$ pdfinfo bobroff-1.pdf | grep 'Page size'
Page size: 612 x 792 pts (letter)
$
and the script could remind you lastly which way to tumble your
duplex printing.
Cheers,
David.
