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I'm producing a pamphlet, so I'm using the twocolumn option to \documentclass, and \usepackage[landscape]{geometry}. The goal is to print out some pages, and fold each 8.5"x11" sheet along the middle, nest the folded sheets, and staple down the middle. I've got the layout looking pretty nice, but I realized that I need to not only print two-sided, but I need to permute the columns to get them in the right order in the pamphlet.

To put this very explicitly, in the case of two folds of paper forming the pamphlet we get eight columns in total, and they must be ordered like this:

\documentclass[12pt,twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage[landscape,margin=1cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{nopageno}
\setlength{\columnsep}{2cm}
\begin{document}
\huge\centering
% First fold.
8 \newpage
1 \newpage
2 \newpage
7 \newpage
% Second fold, inserted inside the first.
6 \newpage
3 \newpage
4 \newpage
5
\end{document}

So, if you print this document out two sided, and then fold the second page and insert it into the first folded page, you get a nicely ordered pamphlet, with the columns sequentially numbered.

Does anyone have any advice on how to automatically reorder the columns according to this rule? Alternatively, maybe there's an entirely different way to do it? For example, I could separate each column into its own true page in the output PDF, then script pdftk to permute the pages, and print two pages per physical sheet of paper, but I don't want to lose control over the inter-column spacing.

Thanks,

PeterSchmidtNielsen
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  • the booklet package is intended for this purpose: texdoc booklet if you are using a system based on tex live, or go to ctan and search for "booklet" (more than one option is listed). – barbara beeton Sep 30 '14 at 17:40
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    Also see What are the available \documentclass types and their uses? – Werner Sep 30 '14 at 17:40
  • @barbarabeeton booklet is extremely problematic. Have you succeeded in using it with a recent installation of TeX? It did used to work but I've not managed to use it successfully for ages and there have been several questions about it, none of which have yielded solutions which involved continuing to use booklet. – cfr Sep 30 '14 at 20:47
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    See my answer to another question. That question is about problems with booklet but the basic task is the same. Note that only solution 2 (which does NOT involve booklet) is currently working, as far as I know. The disadvantage of solution 2 is that it requires 2 files. The advantage it has over solution 1 lies in the fact that it works. – cfr Sep 30 '14 at 20:49
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    @cfr -- i haven't used booklet myself, and i'm glad to be warned about problems. if the information you mention in your other comment regarding booklet is suitable, i will be happy to point it out to will robertson, who is listed as the booklet maintainer. – barbara beeton Sep 30 '14 at 21:22
  • @barbarabeeton To be honest, the 2-file solution is so much easier than using booklet was, even when booklet worked as advertised, that I'd tend to recommend against booklet anyway. When I used booklet, I used it because it was the only thing I could find and it was possible to make it work with a lot of care. When it broke, I had to figure out an alternative (or continue to rely on my initial emergency use of Adobe's software), and using 2 files is just a whole lot more straightforward. Which isn't to say it isn't worth reporting. Only to explain why I have not been so motivated ;). – cfr Oct 01 '14 at 02:06
  • @barbarabeeton According to this comment the maintainer has been informed of the issues. – cfr Oct 01 '14 at 02:11
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    @cfr: I tried your two file solution, it worked great! Thanks so much. I'm very new to stackexchange. Is there a good way I can recognize your comment as being a good answer? – PeterSchmidtNielsen Oct 01 '14 at 07:58
  • @PeterSchmidtNielsen The best way is to vote up the answer you found helpful. You can vote comments up, too, but that doesn't indicate to other users that you found the answer useful and it does not get me any points ;). I checked and I think you have enough reputation to vote answers up now. (There is an up arrow you can click at the top left of the answer. There is also a down arrow but I don't think you have enough reputation yet to use that one, even if you wanted to.) – cfr Oct 01 '14 at 22:56
  • @Werner What should happen to questions which are not duplicates but which are fully addressed by answers elsewhere to the OP's satisfaction? I know I read a thread about this on meta but people seemed to disagree. – cfr Oct 01 '14 at 22:57
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    @cfr: I know. The closure points to saying that the question is a duplicate, yet the answer is the thing that solves it, and putting that as a duplicate here seems like, well, duplication. Different people think of things differently and therefore there are mixed feelings about question that seem completely different, yet are closed as "duplicates" of one another. In my opinion, since the answer is the same, then the question is a duplicate. In the bigger scheme, those who arrive a the closed question will find their solution at the posted duplicate. – Werner Oct 01 '14 at 23:32
  • @Werner That seems sensible to me. I've started a close vote accordingly. (It would seem silly to duplicate that solution here - why repeat my errors in multiple places?!) – cfr Oct 01 '14 at 23:46

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