merging book chapt. in Pagemaker

[bootsn]

I created my book by chapters and saved each individual chapter separately now my printer tells me that all chapters have to be merged together. I read the help on merging but it only talks about merging files and doesn't apply. I have it set up as a book and have printed it with the book option checked on the printer BUT the paper has to be turned after each chapter to print on the back. The printer needs it to print smoothly straight through and to do that I need it all together in one document. Does anyone know how this can be done. There are many illustrations and charts and graphs and If I have to cut and paste I'm afraid everything will get jumbled.
I'd appreciate any help.

Boots

 

[BionicJohn]

Hi, bootsn,

> I have it set up as a book and have printed it with the book option checked on the printer

That's correct when concatenating chapters/files for printing.

> the paper has to be turned after each chapter to print on the back

Are trying to duplex manually?

Iechyd da! John
20:59 02/07/2003 BST

 

[bootsn]

Thank you for your response. No I'm not duplexing maually. The last book I did I set it up as one document and it got very unwieldy and hard to edit but then it printed as one document without any problems. This book I decided to do and save each chapter as a document BUT it prints as separate documents. It loads all the chapters but still prints each chapter separately. The printer I use uses Pagemaker and has encoutered this problem before. He says he cannot print it unless all chapters are merged as one document. Can it be done?

Thank you for any help you can give.
Boots

 

[BionicJohn]

Hi, bootsn,

> Can it be done?

Yes.

You could create PDF, making sure you check print all files in the book.

Or you could manually add pages to the first chapter and drag each page one at a time from the other other chapters.

> It loads all the chapters but still prints each chapter separately

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do the pages not all flow out of the printer one after another, in the correct order with the correct numbers on the pages?

Iechyd da! John
00:30 04/07/2003 BST

 

[bootsn]

Thank you for your response. The book has 16 chapters plus appendices. I meant that the entire book is spooled onto the printer and it prints each chapter in the correct order but it prints each chapter separately front and back and since some chapters begin on the last page of the preceding chapter you have to grab that page in order for it to come out right. I can do that but the printer certainly won't! If it were one document, it would print the whole document from first page to last. It's hard to explain. As far as I'm concerned it is a failing of PM. I really don't think that PDF would work as I would still be stuck with separate documents. I need all documents merged into one.

 

[Eggles]

>>I really don't think that PDF would work as I would still be stuck with separate documents. I need all documents merged into one.<<

If you convert each chapter to a PDF, then in Acrobat you can easily combine them all into one PDF. Open the file containing the first chapter then go to Document>Insert Pages and you can choose the second chapter to be inserted immediately after the last page of the previous chapter. Continue the process for all chapters and appendices and you will have one single PDF of your whole book. The printer should be able to cope with that.

 

[bootsn]

Thank you! That sounds like it will work. I'll give it a try. I have really been unhappy with PM 7. I paid good money for it and it was riddled with bugs and all the fixes were very complicated involving the resistry and even starting in Safe mode to correct one problem. I wish I'd never left Quark. Again Thank you for taking the time and trouble to help.

 

[Eggles]

Persevere with Pagemaker - it is a terrific program. Have you updated to 7.01? If you have problems creating/combining the PDFs, post back.

 

[BionicJohn]

Hi, bootsn,

> it prints each chapter separately front and back and since some chapters begin on the last page of the preceding chapter

???? Start a new chapter on the next page. PM will then sort it all, re-number the pages (inserting blank pages if necessary) and print everything. You just sit and watch.

You can also make a PDF in the say way, as creating a PDF is essentially virtual printing.

> riddled with bugs and all the fixes were very complicated involving the resistry and even starting in Safe mode to correct one problem.

My response to that is that you have system errors. At a guess, your OS was upgraded rather than a new install on freshly partitioned and formatted drive.

Iechyd da! John
16:31 04/07/2003 BST

 

[bootsn]

No John, my old hard drive crashed and I had installed a brand new one. I saw on PM's support page that many others had the same problems.

Yes, I thought about including blank pages between chapters but really didn't want that as I have indexes and it would change the page numbers. Although, I imagine the PDF would have solved the problem and been easier, I did it the hard way and copied pasted. The only problem I had, as I knew I would, was that all the charts lost their formatting. AGGGH!
If I'd done the PDF that wouldn't happened, I don't think.

I would still like to hear from anyone who has encountered this problem.
Thanks for all your help. I learned a few things!
BootsN