The Imposition Blog

Suppose you are producing a 24-page Saddle Stitch Booklet, in 6 Sheets. (Each Sheet contains 4 Pages — 2 on the front side, and 2 on the back side.)

1. Stack 6 blank sheets of the paper stock that you will be using.
2. Measure the thickness of the stack.
3. In IDImposer, typically you will want to specify the Outer Creep as the stack thickness, with an Inner Creep of 0.
   (Alternatively, you can have the Outer Creep be half of the stack thickness, and the Inner Creep also be half of the thickness, but negative.)
4. Click the ‘Impose’ button.
5. Now look at the output doc. Note that the text and other contents of the ‘outer’ sheet (Page 24 / Page 1) have been shifted away from the fold, by approximately the amount of the specified Outer Creep. But the contents of the ‘inner’ sheet (Page 14 / Page 11) will not be shifted at all.
6. Print, fold, staple.

Note that, with thick saddle stitched booklets, you must take care not to have contents very close to the outer edges of the outer sheets, or some of the contents may be clipped or nearly-clipped.

If you like formulas:

shiftAmountForThisSheet = outerCreep – (sheetIndex * (outerCreep – innerCreep) / (numberOfSheets – 1))

where sheetIndex is zero-based.

You like IDImposer, but sometimes you are given a PDF file instead of an InDesign Document to impose?

No problem. In your IDImposer > RESOURCES > HelperScripts folder is a fast and reliable script that can Place the pages of  your PDF file into a new InDesign Document, automatically making your Document have the correct page size, and even handling Bleeds if present.  Just click and go.