Booklet imposition software options

[John_Blasquez@adobeforums.com]

The topic arises again!

I'm looking for Macintosh imposition software that will operate directly on InDesign documents, Pages documents, or PDFs.

I‘d considered at InBooklet (by ALAP) about a year ago. I checked today to see what they’re currently offering. Apparently they were purchased by Quark last December!

Has InBooklet become restricted and proprietary since the Quark acquisition ... i.e. does in now only support Quark? I saw mention on the forum that the plug-in no longer works with InDesign.

Any suggestions on alternatives for free or inexpensive imposing solutions.

Here’s what I’ve found:

CocoaBooklet 2.04
<http://www.iconus.ch/fabien/cocoabooklet/>
While the interface exists entirely inside the preference panels (weird) it seems to work OK.
FREE.

ClickBook 9.0
<http://www.bluesquirrel.com/products/clickbook/>
A friend swears by it. I’m assuming that’s a good thing!
$49

Quite Imposing and Quite Imposing Plus
<http://www.quite.com>
I understand this is high end and expensive. ($470ish for Quite Imposing!)

[Tom Usrey]

ClickBook has no Mac version of its software.

[Dov Isaacs]

Of the products you mention, only Quite Imposing and Quite Imposing Plus are professional grade products.

As mentioned by Tom Usrey, ClickBook is a Windows-only product. But beyond that, it is really just a GDI driver, similar to what you would use for an inkjet printer. To Windows applications, it looks like an RGB-only (no CMYK, no spot color, no color management) GDI driver. You really don't want to create PDF or print to a real PostScript printer via this cute piece of software. It probably is quite (no pun intended) for producing booklets to print from Microsoft Word files to PCL printers.

CocoaBooklet appears to work hand-in-hand with the MacOS "save as PDF" feature. This is not something that you can safely and reliably use for color-managed PDF documents (possibly with spot colors) and extensive use of transparency.

Yes, Quite Imposing and especially Quite Imposing Plus are relatively expensive. On the other hand, you get what you pay for! Its author, Aandi Inston, is truly an industry expert in the area of Acrobat and PDF. His software is exceptionally reliable and he responds to any problems or questions almost instantly. It is very efficient and does not transform or degrade your PDF file content in any way. I've personally been using Quite Imposing Plus for a number of years for both commercial and personal products.

- Dov

[Gerald_Singelmann@adobeforums.com]

Just to put another perspective on this: really high end imposition software like Preps or KIM PDF costs between 4 to 10 times as much as Quite Imposing Plus.

QIP is about the cheapest solution on a professional level.

The big advantage of PDF based solutions is of course that you are not limited to impose only InDesign documents but anything. Including Word, if needs be.

Gerald

[Brutus_Maximus@adobeforums.com]

I second Dov's recommendation of Quite Imposing Plus. It takes awhile to grasp the interface--some steps, like doing a saddlestitch imposition with bleeds, require several sub-steps that aren't particularly instinctive, but it's a very capable tool once you're comfortable with it. Well worth the money!

[Jim_Oblak@adobeforums.com]

This just came out this week. I have not tried it. [FREE]

<http://www.rorohiko.com/impositioncompanion.html>