Re: [NTG-context] \setuparranging values for perfect bound A5 on A3?

9 Oct 2022


      
...
On 9 Oct 2022, at 02:58, Max Chernoff  wrote:
Hi Bruce,
...
I have a book to be perfect bound[1] and I'm trying to work out what
imposition to use.
The printer would like 4 A5 pages laid out on A3 e.g.
+---+---+
|   |   |
| a | b |
|   |   |
+---+---+
|   |   |
| c | d |
|   |   |
+---+---+
so that he can cut the paper and simply stack a, b, c, & d on top of
each other and then put them in the binding machine[2].
If the book is 40 pages long, say, then stack 'a' has page 1 on the
top, page 2 on the reverse, then the next sheet has page 3 and 4, and
so on down to the last sheet which has page 9 on the front and page 10
on the back. Stack 'b' would have page 11 on the front, 12 on the back
and so on, so that each stack has a quarter of the book.
Is this something LMTX can do and if so what combination of
\setuplayout and \setuppaper do I need to use? If they can be printed
in reverse order then great but I assume the printer can do that
fairly easily.
I don't think that there's any way to do this from within a document
run, so I think that you'll need to use an external program.
...
If not, is there a recommended external program that can do it?
But, you can use ConTeXt as the external program here.
Save as "imposition.cld":
local filename = document.getargument("filename")
  local pdf = lpdf.epdf.image.open(filename)
  local pages = pdf.nofpages
  local max = math.ceil(pages / 4)
context.setuppapersize({ "A5" }, { "A3" })
  context.setuppaper { nx = 2, ny = 2 }
  context.setuparranging { "XY" }
local function insert_page(n)
      context.startpagemakeup()
      context.filterpages({ filename }, { n })
      context.stoppagemakeup()
  end
context.starttext()
  for i = 1, max do
      if i % 2 == 1 then
          insert_page(i + 0 * max)
          insert_page(i + 1 * max)
          insert_page(i + 2 * max)
          insert_page(i + 3 * max)
      else
          insert_page(i + 1 * max)
          insert_page(i + 0 * max)
          insert_page(i + 3 * max)
          insert_page(i + 2 * max)
      end
  end
  context.stoptext()
Then run:
context imposition.cld --filename=document.pdf
where "document.pdf" is replaced by your document name.
I'm not sure if I got your desired output quite right here, but
hopefully you can easily modify the script if something isn't quite
right.
Thank-you Max - that is exactly what I wanted and your code worked first time. :)

—
Bruce Horrocks
Hampshire, UK