Applications : Writer - Print a Booklet

Before you print you should proof reading your document Hit that F7 key and do a Complete Spell Check, this should pick up on some of the more obvious errors.

Then do a Print Preview, are there any unnecessary page breaks or do you need to make a page break to start a new heading??

This is just the beginning, check out the links below, you can use most of these tips from your PC such as reading the text out loud, but for proper proof reading you will have to print out your document, things appear more clearly on a printed page and its better to have someone else read it, they will see errors that you keep missing.

So as a note to oneself, copy the links above and paste them under Proof Read. In Writer holding down the Control Key and Clicking on a Hyperlink will open your default Web Browser and go to that page.

Print

Printing is expensive but sometimes necessary. There is no substitute for black text on plain white paper, it's the best way to soak in information, looking at a screen, the text just flows past you.

This document is eight pages, print on both sides of the sheet of A4 page will take 4 sheets of A4 paper, print this document as a Brochure (Booklet) will take just 2 sheets of A4 paper.

Lets say you want to print a 20 page article to read later, which would you prefer to bring with you, 20 sheets of A4 paper or 5 sheets of A4 paper folded in half, neatly fitting into your pocket and easier to read??

Printing is trail and error because your are dealing with three separate items, the Application: in this case Writer, the Operating System: more than likely Windows or in my case Linux and the Printer itself. LibreOffice Help section on printing Brochures(Booklets) is brief and to the point, so to battle with your printer, lets use these directions to print.

The Print will be on the Back of the Sheet

I am using an old HP P3010 Laser Printer still working. The main paper tray has a symbol of a sheet of paper with a corner turned over showing that there is text on the back, there is no text on the front, this indicates that the back of the paper is printed on and that corner when printed in Portrait Orientation will be the top right hand corner, or if printed in Landscape Orientation will be the bottom right hand corner of the page.

Rather than trying to print WriterCrashCourse which contains colour and graphics and can take some time for a printer to process, lets create a new 8 page document, in Writer do a Ctrl+N to start a new document.

Increase the Font Size to 60pts and on the First Page type 1, do a Page Break Ctrl+Enter and type 2. Another Page Break and continue for 4, 5, 6, 7 and finally 8, less Ink/Toner and a quicker print.

Now do a Ctrl+P to print and then lets go through the options.

Choose a Printer

The Print Dialogue box pops up with the General Tab Open which has a Print Preview Pane showing that 8 pages will be set to the printer. Page 1 is previewed, you can see previews of the other pages by clicking on the arrows

This is where you choose which printer to use and what pages to print, All pages or state a print range such as 5-7(pages 5 to 7) or 4,6-8 (page 4 then pages 6 to 8).

If your Printer pops out the page face up, like most Ink jet Printers do, you should tick the Print in reverse page order, this means that page 1 will be printed last and will be on top of the stack otherwise page 8 will be on top and you will have to resort them from 1 to 8.

The number of Copies by default is set to one, you can change that by clicking -/+ or enter a number, just make sure the Collate box remains ticked ie Copy 1: Pages 1 to 8 are printed out, then Copy 2: 1 to 8 otherwise you will have 10 page 1's then 10 page 2's .. and then have to do all sorting out yourself, NO.

If you Click OK you will use 8 sheets of A4 paper to print the 8 pages, not very Eco friendly, think of the trees, so with your Printer Selected Click on Properties.

Be Eco Friendly- print on BOTH sides of the paper

On the Paper Tab the Paper Size is set to A4 and Orientation set for Portrait and hopefully there is an option for Duplex Prints on both sides of the sheet so to print these 8 pages using 4 sheets of A4 paper, choose Duplex Long-Edge Binding, Click OK.

The Printer will print the first page, then drag the page back in and print on the other side of the sheet, cool to watch.

If there is no Duplex Option on your Printer, you will have to do it manually, it will take some trial and error but you will get there. The following worked for me when I turned off Duplex Printing.

I did a Ctrl+P to start the printing process and then

Click the Pages Layout Tab and in the Pages Sides choose Back sides/left pages/even the print preview shows pages 2, 4, 6, and 8 and click OK.

No Duplex, then print the Even numbered pages first

The Four Pages were printed face down, I took them up and turned them over with page 2 facing me and placed them back into the paper tray

I then did another Ctrl+P, went to the Pages Layout Tab again and this time in the Pages Sides I selected Front sides/right pages/odd pages, the Print Preview Window displayed pages 1, 3, 5 and 7 and Clicked Ok.

Pages 1 was printed on the back of Page 2, 3 on the back of 4 etc and the document ended up in correct order, all I had to do was pick it up ready to read.

Did that Print OK??? put in a note to oneself beneath Printing on the Type and Make of Printer and what worked for you.

If it didn't work out put the paper back into the tray and on your new document do a Ctrl+A to select all the text and then a Ctrl+E to centre it, try something different and print again. Hopefully the centred numbers are in the correct order.

Oh NO went pear shaped again, well third time lucky, do another Ctrl+A and a Ctrl+R to right align the text, change something else and hopefully third time lucky :-).

Print as a Brochure

To Print the document as a Brochure (Booklet) requires a bit more tweaking.

For best results all your document should be Portrait Orientation as Writer will print two opposing pages on the one sheet in Landscape Orientation so...

If you have a Duplex Printer, in the General Tab choose the Printers Properties choose Duplex Short-Edge (Landscape) and in the Page Layout click on Brochure, the Print Preview changes from Portrait to Landscape and four pages are now set to print, pages 8 and 1 are on the first sheet of paper, click the arrows to see how the other pages work out and Click OK to Print.

Printing as a Brochure/Booklet

The Printer will work its magic and you will have a neat 8 page booklet using only 2 sheets of A4 paper.

Turning off the Duplex,I set the Orientation to Landscape then in the Page Layout Tab, Choose Brochure and in Page Sides choose Front Side/Right Side/Odd Pages, Print them and then I took the pages out and pop them back into the same tray and then Print the Back Side/Left Side/Even Pages.

No Duplex then print the Even Pages First

Export as a PDF

Wasn't Printing fun, lets share the joy by sharing the Document as a PDF so that others can also have fun printing.

Exporting as a PDF the document displays as you created it so go File»Export as»Export as PDF..

Export your doc as a PDF, it will appear exactly as you want it

There are many Free Open Source Applications to manipulate pdfs, check out the links below and for another note to oneself, copy and paste them under our last Heading Export as a PDF

pdfmod ¦ pdf mix tool ¦ pdf chain ¦ Scribus Desktop Publishing

YES you have finally reached the end of this Article, its been tough going but you got here and just before you go, let us know what you think ..

Is there anybody out there???

Brilliant:  Wow, what an Application, Dumping MS Word NOW, using Writer from now on

Good:  I prefer Google Docs

OK:  Writer is a poor sub

Rubbish:  Word forever

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