Octavo

Imposition Type

Imposition Type

The Imposition Type section is where you tell Octavo what you want to make.

The word Imposition refers to laying out and arranging pages for print, so that the finished work will have the pages in the correct order. You’ll have encountered the problem that imposition aims to solve if you’ve ever printed and folded a booklet without the aid of helpful software like Octavo.

Settings

Imposition Type

Choose from the available imposition types. Select one to see a brief description of what it does. Each type arranges your pages differently for printing and folding.

Finishing

Trim Mode

Choose between:

  • Use whole media — Your pages fill the entire sheet of paper, with no trimming needed afterward.
  • Trim — You’ll cut the paper down to a specific size after printing. This unlocks the Trim Size and Add bleed outside trim options below.

See Trimming for more on this concept.

Not all imposition types offer the same choices within trim mode.

Trim Size

Only visible when Trim is selected. Choose how to specify the finished size:

  • Page — Set the size of each individual page.
  • Sheet — Set the size of the folded/finished sheet.

Add bleed outside trim

Only visible when Trim is selected. Enable this checkbox to extend content beyond the trim line, so that when you cut the paper there are no white edges. A visual editor lets you set the bleed distance on each side.

See Bleed for more on this concept.

Note that once you’ve enabled bleed here, you still need to configure some content to actually be placed there. Your source page(s) will need a margin defined such that there is some content outside it, and your placement margins will also need to be correctly configured for bleed.

Spine Edge

Choose whether the spine (the folded or bound edge) is on the Left or Right side. This determines which direction the finished booklet or document opens.

Each imposition type may add its own additional options below these common settings — see the individual imposition type pages for details.

Imposition-type-specific Options

Each imposition type also has its own set of options that appear in this pane. These options differ per imposition type, but commonly include controls such as double-sided layout.