Parts of this may be more detailed than you need. I did this on a Mac. There will be some difference with a Windows setup. Please help improve this guide if you have additions or corrections.
This assumes you have:
- Loose leaf copier paper such as Rite in the Rain LL851 with each sheet having two 4 5/8 in x 7 in pre-perforated loose leaf sheets (or something similar)
- An image file for each page of your booklet
Steps:
- Create a project folder and work in it
- Create an images folder and drop all your map page images into it
- Create a white 1px by 1px blank.jpg file
- Get an ordered list of your files (on a Mac you can select all your files, copy, open TextEdit, go to Edit > Paste and Match Style) and put it into an Excel spreadsheet in column A
- Autofill column B with the row number (e.g. 1,2,3...)
- Autofill column C with the formula
=ISEVEN(<column B cell>) - Sort all the data on column C
- Fill column D with the the row number but individually for each of the column C TRUE/FALSE groups
- Autofill column E with the formula
=ISEVEN(<column D cell>) - Sort by Column C Then Column E
- Your list should be main-grouped into Odd, Even and then sub-grouped into Odd-evens, Odd-odds, Even-evens, and Even-odds
- Page 1,5,9...,3,7,11..., 2,6,10...,4,7,12..
- Delete all except Column A (your filenames)
- Cut/paste the sub-group of both main-groups up next to the first half, but for the group that has page number 2 offest down by one and put blank.jpg in the first cell, then remove the empty rows between the lists, add a column and fill it with the row number but individually for each of the two groups, add a column with the formula
=ISEVEN(<column C cell>)
A | B | C | D
-----------------------------------------------------
output_1.jpg | output_3.jpg | 1 | =ISEVEN(C1)
output_5.jpg | output_7.jpg | 2 | =ISEVEN(C2)
output_9.jpg | output_11.jpg | 3 | =ISEVEN(C3)
output_13.jpg | output_15.jpg | 4 | =ISEVEN(C4)
output_2.jpg | blank.jpg | 1 | =ISEVEN(C5)
output_6.jpg | output_4.jpg | 2 | =ISEVEN(C6)
output_10.jpg | output_8.jpg | 3 | =ISEVEN(C7)
- Sort by Column C Then by Column D, then delete those columns
- Add leftside and rightside column headers
- Your table should match the following format
leftside | rightside
output_1.jpg | output_3.jpg
output_2.jpg | blank.jpg
output_5.jpg | output_7.jpg
output_6.jpg | output_4.jpg
output_9.jpg | output_11.jpg
output_10.jpg | output_8.jpg
output_13.jpg | output_15.jpg
- Save as an .xlsx file
- Open a new Microsoft Word Doc and save as Word 97-2004 Document (.doc)
- Adjust the Top and Left page margins to match the punchouts of your paper, set Bottom and Right to 0
- Add a 3 column x 1 row table
- Set the row height to match the height of the punchouts
- Set the column widths to match the punchout, middle gutter, punchout
- Adjust the Table Options to set the Default cell margins to 0
- Remove cell border styling
- Open the Mail Merge Manager (in the Tools menu)
- Create new Form Letters
- Get List > Open Data Source... and select your Excel file
- In the left cell
- Insert Field... (in the Insert menu)
- Choose the INCLUDEPICTURE and add the directory path to your images folder for example
INCLUDEPICTUE "Macintosh HD:Users:danbjoseph:Desktop:BoundMapBook:images:"then click okay - From Insert Placeholders in the Mail Merge Manager drag leftside to the last part of directory path
- The cell should now have something like
{ INCLUDEPICTURE "Macintosh HD:Users:danbjoseph:Desktop:BoundMapBook:images:output_1.jpg" \* MERGEFORMAT }
- Repeat for the right-most cell but instead drag rightside to the last part of the directory path
- Complete Merge > Merge to New Document
- Select all then on a Mac press cmd+shift+option+u (Windows it should just be F9) to update all fields and the images should appear
- You might need to toggle View all placeholders (the {a} icon) in the Mail Merge Manager under 5. Preview Results
- If a path doesn't return an image, Word will drop in the last successful image (this is the reason for the blank.jpg for the empty cell for the cover page)
- Save as a PDF file
- Print double-sided and Actual size (not Fit or Shrink oversized pages)