Special repeated sheet

When printing zines or books 4up to a sheet, the most efficient use of paper is to have your page count be a multiple of 8 (eg 8, 16, 24, 32, …). However, sometimes you are printing something with a page count that is more naturally something in between (eg 12 or 20 pages long). For non-collating printers like risograph and other stencil based methods, there is a trick to make a special repeated sheet so you can get that page count.

In this case, Layout Department will layout your pages onto sheets using a special trick (aka “work and turn”) on one of the sheets to turn a multiple of 4 into something you can efficiently print 4up.

The key here is that for the one special sheet you will use the same master stencil on both sides and print half as many copies (!!!). That’s because that sheet contains two copies of the same thing. Since it can be easy to forget about the special sheet (repeat: half as many copies!), we recommend you print that one first (this is the default. You can also print it last, if that works better for you — just don’t forget).

When collating, just cut the special sheet in half, flip the bottom half back-side-forward and upside-down so that it matches the top half. Then combine with the top half. Continue cutting and then collating the other sheets as you normally would.

Layout Department will label the special sheet in the layouts UI and the export files differently than normal, to help emphasize that it’s special.

In Layout Department, this feature is available in the paid version.