Bookmaker takes any PDF and reformats it for printing as a DIY book. Each page of the input PDF is trimmed for exterior white space, and then resized to fit four pages on a single sheet of paper (both sides). The pages are ordered according to the type of book desired. Page numbers are also added.

USAGE: bookmaker [options] input.pdf [output.pdf]

OPTIONS:
        --help, -h              This help information
        --paper {a4,letter}     Size of paper to be printed on. Default is a4
        --type {chapbook,perfect}
                                Type of imposition to make. Default is chapbook
        --trim {even-odd,document,per-page}
                                Controls how whitespace is trimmed off.
                                Default is even-odd.
        --nopagenumbers         suppress additional page numbers
        --print                 send result to default printer instead of saving to file
        --printer PRINTER       print result to specific printer
                                (implies --print)
        --cover, -c             Add a cover to the PDF
                                Uses the first page of the PDF if --title is not specified
        --title                 The title for the generated cover page (implies --cover)
        --date                  The date for the generated cover page
        --author                The author for the generated cover page
        --version               prints the version string and exits

Bookmaker can produce PDFs for A4 or Letter size paper. Defaults to A4 paper.

bookmaker --paper {a4,letter}

• a4: Fit the input PDF to A5 and then impose the A5 pages on A4 paper. Produces an A4 sized PDF. (DEFAULT)
• letter: Fit the input PDF to half letter (digest) and then impose the half letter pages on letter paper. Produces a letter sized PDF.

Bookmaker can produce PDFs ready for creating two types of books: chapbooks and perfect bound books. Chapbooks are produced by default.

bookmaker --type {chapbook,perfect}

• chapbook: produce a PDF suitable for making a chapbook (DEFAULT)
• perfect: produce a PDF suitable for making a perfect bound book

Chapbooks are then simply folded in half. The best page length for chapbooks is 16 pages. Above 24 starts to become unweildly without trimming and securing the pages. Folded chapbooks can be stapled or sewn.

Hamish MacDonald made a video tutorial on how to make a simple chapbook

Books are designed to be perfect bound with 1 sheet signatures. To do this, fold each page in half, stack the pages together, and bind.

Hamish MacDonald made a tutorial on perfect bound books.

Exterior whitespace (margins) are automatically trimmed from the input PDF pages. Different trimming schemes produce different results.

bookmaker --trim {even-odd,document,per-page}

• even-odd: Creates document-wide trim setting for both even and odd pages
• document: Creates a document-wide trim setting from all pages
• per-page: Creates a trim setting for every page

Bookmaker automatically adds page numbers to the output. To turn off page numbers, use:

bookmaker --nopagenumbers

All PDFs produced by Bookmaker are meant to be printed using a duplex printer with long-edge flip. Long-edge flip is (usually) the default for duplex printing as it is the setting for full (single) page duplex printing.

Running

bookmaker --print input.pdf

will send the result to your default printer (using lp).

You can also set the printer to send the output to by

bookmaker --printer printername input.pdf

Your favorite PDF reader can also print the produced PDF.

Requires:

• cairo
• poppler-glib
• pangocairo

Compilation:

make

Place the resulting bookmaker binary in your path.