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by sborra
1126 days ago
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The piece of software I miss the most since moving from MacOS to Windows is Cheap Impostor: http://cheapimpostor.com. It lets you turn any PDF into a correctly imposed 2-up/magazine/n-signature PDF ready for printing and assembling. It does it all with total control over margins, gutters, zoom lever, with an instant preview. It was so nice to have it during university. I would use it for printing out papers as A5 "magazines" that I would bind myself. Very satisfying. I never found anything quite like it for Windows |
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Ages ago, I created an n-up imposition engine for bookwork. Also adjusted pages for creep and shift. And very basic printer marks.
It was just a simple UI form, not a graphical app (Illustrator, QuarkXpress, Preps). It'd output both a Preps template (for imposition) and a JDF with the fold and binding specs. Though the plan was to impose PDFs natively.
Alas, we were bought (by Creo), and my work was abandoned, then lost. Billion dollar company had no interest in a $50 utility (or InDesign plugin).
FWIW, Rohan Holt recreated the bookwork engine for his Metrix product. So my algorithmic innovation wasn't lost completely. Metrix is a professional general purpose tool, whereas mine was just for bookwork.
With the shift from litho to digital printing, on top of the decline of print work industry, I've assumed there's no commercial market.
But maybe with nostalgia, there's now makers and tinkerers who'd use a simple tool.
Thoughts?