PDF Export changing page size

Hi there,

I’ve been trying to export a score I created. I start using 9x12 paper (in Configuration mode) to write my score. When I get to the Print mode, turn to the Graphics tab, select Booklet in print style, and export it, I expect to get a PDF file with 18x12 pages organized in booklet form. What I actually get is a PDF file with 16x12 pages organized in booklet form. ALMOST what I’m aiming for, but not quite.

What am I doing wrong here?

Is there a standard paper size that is 18"x12"? I’m not aware of one, unfortunately.

When you export a PDF using the ‘Normal’ job type, the PDF will use the page size as defined in Layout Options. But when you export using e.g. ‘Booklet’, then it’ll use the paper size chosen for printing, and I guess the closest size you can choose for printing would be Tabloid, which is 11" x 17".

Yes there is - it’s ARCH B, from the US sizes used for architectural and other technical drawings.

ARCH A is 9x12 which is also used for music (e.g solo keyboard scores). The biggest size in the range is 36x48.

See Standard Paper Sizes - Archtoolbox

I don’t know if the large ARCH sizes are readily available as cut sheets though. For technical drawings the paper is usually supplied on rolls for use with large high speed plotters not printers - e.g. 36 inches wide by 150 feet (!!) long.

Thanks for letting me know about these page sizes, Rob. We can add them to the list of presets available in Dorico’s Layout Options dialog, but unfortunately this will probably not help in this specific situation.

What Josue might need to do is export the project using the “normal” job type, which should produce pages of 9" x 12", and then use another tool to produce an imposed PDF of the appropriate size. The PDF-BatchBooklet tool available from Philip Rothman’s NYC Music Services page might do the trick.

So, in short, a 18x12 booklet will not be possible directly from Dorico, is that right?

I print on 12"x18" (known as Tabloid Oversize, or Tabloid Extra) paper all the time, making booklets, but I can’t do it directly from Dorico, so I export the 9"x12" pages to PDF from Dorico, then use my printer driver to print a booklet on 12"x18". This works fine, but it does add an extra step.

What’s your printer brand and model?

HP LaserJet 5200, and I highly recommend it. You can easily find used ones for a very reasonable price.

I recently experienced a problem on this front: I created a non-standard page size (half of a US legal sheet) so that I could do a 2up booklet on legal paper. Now Daniel mentioned above that the booklet feature defaults to the print size chosen. I tried to export the booklet as a PDF with legal size selected. While it will print just fine on legal paper, it will not export legal sized to PDF. The paper size is off in the PDF and when I try to print from the PDF outside of Dorico it results in very strange margins.

OK, I think I am confused, and thought I would resurface this thread to get some help.

I am creating a book, were each page by itself is 8.5" x 11" (standard US letter size). I’d like to use the ‘booklet’ function to create this book. Therefore, the page size used for the booklet should be 11" x 17" (US Tabloid size) (8.5" x 2 = 17" ---- So you can fit 2 US Letter portrait size pages side by side on an 11" x 17" sheet in landscape).

Since I do not have a printer that can handle 11" x 17" size paper, I’d like to export this as a PDF so I can take it to my local print shop who can print 11" x 17" (if not bigger).

In this file, under Print mode, I select Graphics > PDF for my export. I select ‘booklet’ under job type. Under page setup it says US letter and shows a landscape orientation. This looks ok, except that the page had to be scaled down some to fit the half size of a US letter page. I try to change the page setup to 11" x 17" (US Tabloid), but am unable to make any changes.


Is there a way to handle this natively in Dorico? I thought you could, but now I am unsure about how to do this.

Robby

For anyone on a Mac, I’ve made a suite of PDF utilities which may be useful. This includes saving as a PDF booklet direct from the Mac Print menu’s PDF button. There’s also Finder Services that do things like add “1 of 30, 2 of 30…” to a group of PDFs, as well as watermarking, Combining, splitting, converting to and from images, etc, etc.

Robby, I think you’re best off exporting to PDF as a “normal” job type and then asking the print shop to print it as a booklet.

The only other option (as Daniel explained last September) is to temporarily plug your computer into a printer that can handle 11x17. Then that paper size will appear in the right panel of print mode, and with destination set to Print you can then set that paper size, revert destination to Graphics and export your booklet.

Thanks guys!

I went round and round after posting that, and re-read a lot and began to make MORE sense of it. At first, what I read made it sound like Dorico does that already. Upon further reading (sometimes my mind adds words in where they aren’t), I realized I somewhat missed the gist of what was written.

I’ll look into the PDF utilities, Ben.

Robby