“Octavo” size duplex booklet printing on 11x17

Dorico
1

Choral score: I set layout page size as Custom for modified Octavo, 7”x11”. Now I want to print a booklet on 11x17 paper and trim the excess. I made the appropriate printer settings (I thought), and all is well, but the output is justified to the outside margins, not the inside margins. IOW, there is a way-oversized margin in the center where the fold will be. More specifically, the two-7”wide pages, side-by-side, should be 14” wide, with a 1.5” margin on each outside edge. Instead, I get the reverse: 3” in the middle, 0” on the outside.
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks!

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I don’t think you can do this directly from within Dorico at the moment, I’m afraid: it assumes that the paper size you’ll be printing on is double the size of a single page, and doesn’t provide options for changing the imposition of the page on larger paper.

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Thanks for confirming. It appears when printing a smaller page size on to a larger paper size, the smaller page is centered on the larger page. This creates oversized margins, which are doubled when doing booklets. :disappointed: So now I need to figure out how to export pdfs of Octavo pages (6.75”x10.5”) at their actual size. Then, “impose’” them, 2-up, centered on 11x17 paper. There must be way! Anyone know of a helpful 3rd party app (for Windows)?
I have a large format printer and used to do this routinely in Finale. This old dog is trying to learn some new tricks, but this is making me crazy!

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For the benefit of anyone who has the same problem, I found a solution:
The key was to create and save TWO user-defined custom paper sizes in my printer driver app (Epson, in my case).

  1. first one is “Octavo 1-up 6.75”x10.5”.
  2. second is “Octavo 2-up 10.5”x13.5””. (Double wide version of #1)
    It never occurred to me to do #2, because where do you get that size paper??? Obviously you don’t but Dorico doesn’t know that! Once those profiles are saved in the printer app, Dorico can see them when the printer driver is selected. (May need to switch printers in Dorico, or restart, etc.).

You can now print to either size for different purposes, but I wanted a 2-up booklet.
So I selected 11x17 tabloid paper in the print driver. Then I printed the 10.5x13.5 pdf using plain old MS Edge browser. It centered the 13.5” width in the middle of the 17” paper. Trim the outside margins in one chop with a paper cutter, and all done. Whew….
Or go to your local copy shop.

Hope this helps someone. Drove me nuts.

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