how to print from a4 to a3

[frits]

Hi all,

I know the topic has been answered before, but I can't find it back. I'm making a brochure on A4 but I want to print it om A3 paper that is folded to A4. What is the best approach to do this. The A4 pages are good for copiing the text from MS word into the xar file. But after that I have to print it on A3 in the right printing order. Is there a good way (working proces) to do this?

Thanx in advance,
Frits

[handrawn]

given your printer prints to A3 size paper, I'd set your page size in xara to A3 - and paste up the A4 size pages in position two per A3 page

what order they go in depends on how you feed the paper - obviously you are going to print on both sides - manual feed will be different to 'duplex' [printing both sides 'at once'] and your printer may also have a 'booklet' printing option - the first is straight forward, if slower and impractical for large print runs - the other two will depend to an extent on which printer you use and how it works

[mwenz]

Being the ignorant US-based designer I am, I thought the wonderful thing about metric paper sizes is the scalability. Cannot an a4 page be scaled in Acrobat or Reader at the time of printing to a3 and have the aspect ration maintained? If so, and this is sent to a professional printer, then they should simply be able to do it.

Alternatively, if you use a PDF print driver, it should be able to be scaled at the time of creation too.

In any case, best practice is as mentioned. Bring the elements into Xara and design with an a3 page size.

Take care, Mike

[Albacore]

You know the page numbering 1 -4 on front 3 - 2 on the other side, create as Handrawn has stated an A3 page landscape. Using the guide layer drawn on guides to mark the centre fold line then give the page some guttering again using the guides (the size is up to you but 8mm would be fine, you can also use a rectangle in the guide layer to do your guttering, do this on both sides of the fold line and then save this as a template. You haven't said whither it is full colour bleed or not so we can come back to this later if you want. Using your imposition now draw out your layout and place your text in. Would always have the text on top of any other work on the page, better still place it on its own layer. Any other question about duplex printing will depend on your printer driver but most software will instruct you the correct way to turn your paper. Should have said said rather than having multi pages why not save it as sides as it is easier to figure your imposition out.

[Albacore]

Just had a look at your file which has A4 laid out landscape so that would mean your A3 page would need to be portrait.

[frits]

Thank you all for the replies. I'm going to try some things.

Regards,
Frits

[Albacore]

Was at a funeral today so very little time as I had to catch up my own work! Did your front page but I am not sure what your layout is hope this will help. A few minor points would convert 2010 & 2011 to shape and then subtract from rounded rectangle as it will print better (have not done this as did not want to change design). If the print run is going to be done professionally would watch out for shadows never print well, if you wanted to keep them then use vector shapes behind without feathering and move all text areas to the top layer.