Bookmaker takes any PDF and reformats it for printing as a DIY book. Each page of the input PDF is trimmed for exterior white space, and then resized to fit four pages on a single sheet of paper (both sides). The pages are ordered according to the type of book desired. Page numbers are also added.

Usage

usage: bookmaker [-h] [--paper {a4,letter}] [--type {chapbook,perfect}]
                 [--trim {even-odd,document,per-page}] [--nopagenumbers]
                 [--print] [--printer PRINTER] [--version]
                 input [output]

DIY Books from PDFs

positional arguments:
  input                 PDF to convert into a book
  output                Where to store the new book

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --paper {a4,letter}   Size of paper to be printed on. Default is a4
  --type {chapbook,perfect}
                        Type of imposition to make. Auto automatically chooses
                        between the two. Default is chapbook
  --trim {even-odd,document,per-page}
                        Controls how whitespace is trimmed off. Default is
                        even-odd.
  --nopagenumbers       suppress additional page numbers
  --print               send result to default printer
  --printer PRINTER     print result to specific printer (implies --print)
  --version             prints the version string and exits

Paper size

Bookmaker can produce PDFs for A4 or Letter size paper. Defaults to A4 paper.

bookmaker --paper {a4,letter}

a4: Fit the input PDF to A5 and then impose the A5 pages on A4 paper. Produces an A4 sized PDF. (DEFAULT)
letter: Fit the input PDF to half letter (digest) and then impose the half letter pages on letter paper. Produces a letter sized PDF.

Book types

Bookmaker can produce PDFs ready for creating two types of books: chapbooks and perfect bound books. Chapbooks are produced by default.

bookmaker --type {chapbook,perfect}

chapbook: produce a PDF suitable for making a chapbook (DEFAULT)
perfect: produce a PDF suitable for making a perfect bound book

Chapbooks

Chapbooks are then simply folded in half. The best page length for chapbooks is 16 pages. Above 24 starts to become unweildly without trimming and securing the pages. Folded chapbooks can be stapled or sewn.

Hamish MacDonald made a video tutorial on how to make a simple chapbook

Perfect bound books

Books are designed to be perfect bound with 1 sheet signatures. To do this, fold each page in half, stack the pages together, and bind.

Hamish MacDonald made a tutorial on perfect bound books.

Trim

Exterior whitespace (margins) are automatically trimmed from the input PDF pages. Different trimming schemes produce different results.

bookmaker --trim {even-odd,document,per-page}

even-odd: Creates document-wide trim setting for both even and odd pages
document: Creates a document-wide trim setting from all pages
per-page: Creates a trim setting for every page

Page Numbers

Bookmaker automatically adds page numbers to the output. To turn off page numbers, use:

bookmaker --nopagenumbers

Printing

All PDFs produced by Bookmaker are meant to be printed using a duplex printer with long-edge flip. Long-edge flip is (usually) the default for duplex printing as it is the setting for full (single) page duplex printing.

Running

bookmaker --print input.pdf

will send the result to your default printer (using lp).

You can also set the printer to send the output to by

bookmaker --printer printername input.pdf

Your favorite PDF reader can also print the produced PDF.

Installation

Put bookmaker in your path.

Requirements and Dependencies

Relies on Ghostscript, TexLive 2011 (newer version may also work), Python, and CUPS (for printing).

If you have a python older than 2.7, you will need a copy of argparse. You can get a copy from the [latest python standard library]:(http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/2.7/Lib/argparse.py). Put argparse.py in the same directory as the bookmaker script. This method has been tested on RHEL6 which uses python 2.6.6.

Seems to work using Python 2.6.6, 2.7.2, and 3.2.2

nathankerr / bookmaker

readme