Suzanne Barnhill, others - same old questions about booklet layout

[Word Worrier]

I am going to be doing a booklet for an upcoming school reunion. It's
probably going to be around 80 pages (that is, 20 paper sheets folded
in half to yield 80 pages), and will be distributed to (guessing) 50
people.

I'd like to do this booklet in "booklet" format, with the pages made
of 8.5x11 inch paper folded over, so that, for example, the front
cover and back cover would be on the same sheet, backed by the inside
front and back covers. Each inner sheet of paper would have pages x
and y on one side (where x + y = total number of pages+1, allowing for
covers), and pages x-1 and y+1 on the other. I'm not planning on
having visible page numbers. Laborious description, but I think most
know what I'm describing here.

I have read Suzanne's past posts about duplex printing "odd" then
"even" pages. I've also read the MVP site section with the macros
that facilitate printing of such booklets. My idea is to do this in
Word 2000, without spending any money on add-ons or other software.

Could someone give me some even more basic guidance though?

Right now I have my document set up with 5.5x8.5 inch pages, with
appropriate margins. Is this the right way to start?

My thought would be to dump this document to a pdf file using the
ghostscript utility, then take the pdf to a commercial printer, or to
someone with a high-quality laser printer to actually print the
finished version.

Am I on the right track?

Expect many more questions as I bumble through this, but any pointers
to get me started, I'd appreciate.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Since you have Word 2000, you can use the macros (for those, you start with
a full-size page), but if I were you, I'd do it using the Word 97 method
described at
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/BookletPrinting.htm. This will take two
passes through your printer for each side of the page. Then you arrange
those pages in the appropriate pairs and take them to your copy shop or
offset printer and have copies made. I have found this *very* dependable,
and it has the advantage that you can use all the formatting features you
would in any normal Word document: restarting page numbering, making an
index and TOC, using footnotes, page borders, etc. If you don't need
documentation features (TOC, index, footnotes) and have access to Publisher,
you'll find it does booklets very well, though it is easier to use for
discrete pages as opposed to continuous text.