InDesign Print 2-up??

[vkeeneylnf]

I have designed a postcard that is 8.5 x 5.5 inches (half a sheet of letter paper).  I am trying to print 2 on a page to a xerox phaser 7760 printer - there is no bleed in the file.  I can not find anywhere in the Indesign print dialog to have it print 2-up.  I have been using MS Publisher for years and in the print dialog it gives me page options which allows me to choose copies per sheet.  I was hoping to change over to InDesign but this is a deal breaker....almost everything I do is 2 or 10 up to a page and I need to design the file to the final size - in other words I am not open to copying and pasting so there are actually 2 on the page - I make many adjustments to the file throughout the designing process and multiple copies would lead to errors.  Isnt there a setting in the program that allows me to print 2-up if it fits on the page?  Please HELP!!

[Eugene Tyson]

File>Print Booklet

Choose 2 up Consecutive

Or you could set up a new file and place them on the page.

You can place indesign files inside indesign files.

[vkeeneylnf]

I just tied your suggestion, print booklet, 2 up consecutive.  I got one copy at the top of the page without the second copy below.  What settings should I have then in the regular print settings to make that happen correctly?  In the print booklet under preview I have a warning that says the booklet doesnt fit the current paper size and also a message that 3 blank pages have been added to create the booklet. 

I definitely don't want to set up a new file and then place it on the page - with the amount of files I have to manage that would be a nightmare. 

[Eugene Tyson]

I suggest you get some basic imposition software.

If you have that much to do then Quite Imposing for Acrobat will be good for you.

Despite the weird website - it's the software you need

http://www.quite.com/imposing/

InDesign is not an imposition software program. Usually printers have very expensive and more adept software like Preps to impose pages.

You can play around with the File>Print Booklet - the dialog gives a preview

To remove blank pages being added then uncheck that option.

Also - your printer settings might have a 2 up option.

Other than that

Setting up a file for 2 up where you can drag and drop the file to the layout would be more productive.

[vkeeneylnf]

Coming from Publisher, which I am often told, is so far behind InDesign in its capabilities, I am having a hard time understanding how the dinasaur Publisher offers the ability to print 2-up (or any up depending on the original file size), yet its superior InDesign does not?  I can't imagine that I am the only person out there needing to print to a desktop type printer from InDesign without purchasing additional expensive software?  Is it really not a straight forward option in the software?  I'm so disapointed and especially now rethinking my migration to Indesign.  I was so excited (really) to work with InDesign, a pin just burst my bubble

[Peter Spier]

Publisher is targeted at hom/office users who do their own printing. InDesing is targeted at professional designers, and we tend to pass our work to professional printers for output. Imposition is their job.

[Eugene Tyson]

You could use a PDF of the document - it's easier

http://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/print-multiple-pages-per-sheet.html

Some solutions here

http://indesignsecrets.com/printing-documents-2-up-or-n-up-on-a-page-in-indesign.php

Where InDesign is not an imposition tool - it's vastly superior many DTP alternatives - I'd say it's superior to all of them.

[Geоrge]

My two pennies here. I do never use it print from InDesign for something real, only if I need to check something with a text correction. Print from InDesign have many bugs that I tired to see and understand why I do see this bugs (strange lines, or not printed lines, etc).

My strong opinion - do the PDF from InDesign by export (or by print to Adobe PDF-printer) and then only do print to your hardware-printer. 

P.S. Acrobat do have 2-up printing in the print settings. https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/print-booklets-acrobat-reader.html

[Peter Spier]

These days when doing a job like this I would make one original at 8.5 x 5.5, then place that .indd page two times into a new file and export that to PDF for printing.

[Andrew_Vics]

Super old post bust just in case anyone else is wondering:

I was printing some labels for a homemade wine and needed to figure this out. Workaround for printing 2-up from InDesign:

Add a page, put the same design on both pages, Print Booklet 2-Up Consecutive. Click "Print Settings" select Marks and Bleeds to turn on crop marks, click OK to return to print booklet setup and print it. The two pages will print side by side with crop marks. You're two pages will serve as a 2 up layout on one sheet. It's clunky but it's a workaround that serves the purpose.

[PPCC_AD]

Your fix worked perfectly for my current project! I am new to InDesign and decided to do a half-sheet for a program (4.25x11) without realizing that would make a blank 1/2 sheet. I am certain there is a simple way to duplicate it so I can print 2 1/2 sheets on every full page. However, I do not see nor find a way to do so. When I was researching how to, this thread came up and caught my attention. I tried your fix, and all prints perfectly! Thank you! Your fix helped at a time I am working against an important deadline.

[John Mensinger]

As it was already mentioned, InDesign is simply not geared for desktop printing. In fact, I never print directly from InDesign to an office printer of any kind. In my workflow, InDesign is an editing environment. Native files are saved, of course, but the primary output format is PDF. Every form of deployment is handled only after exporting my InDesign file to PDF.

vkeeneylnf wrote:

...almost everything I do is 2 or 10 up to a page and I need to design the file to the final size - in other words I am not open to copying and pasting so there are actually 2 on the page - I make many adjustments to the file throughout the designing process and multiple copies would lead to errors.

You may need to adjust your thinking a bit here. Did you know that in Indesign, you can Place (link) an Indesign file? So, design your half-page postcard at real size. Make a 2 up layout, not via copy-paste, but by Placing two copies of the native design on a sheet. They link just like any file you Place. Save as 'postcard_2-up.indd'. If you make future edits to the original design, the linked copies in the 2-up file will update when that file is reopened.

[christinem48873065]

This was the explanation/instruction I was looking for! Thanks so much!

[PPCC_AD]

I will have to give that a try! Thank you!

[greg sheffield]

Here's how I got "print booklet" to work for 2-up imposition in CS6: Specify page range 1,1; booklet type "2-up consecutive" and uncheck "print blank printer spreads." The 1,1 is the key: it tells the driver to double up page one without actually adding a duplicate page to the document.

For more complex imposition tasks, I export to PDF then use the Acrobat plugin "PDF Snake." This handy plugin can manipulate PDFs in several useful ways.

[DAV29983]

This totally worked!

[Manvinder1587]

I used your basic idea to print an entire booklet of 106 pages which for our own internal reasons we had to print each page 2 up on a sheet.

I used Excel to create a text string that was in the format 1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4..106,106 (Using concatenate function)

Print Booklet>Pages_Range - 1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4..106,106

Booklet Type - 2-up Consecutive

Space Between Pages (Your preference, I used 0)

Print Settings>Setup>Paper Size - Enter the final printed page size 

Print Settings> Marks and Bleeds - Crop Marks

I printed to Adobe PDF so I could get a final file I could check before printing.