Hey there, groovy cats
Maybe you can help me out. I'm making some business cards for a client. Side 1 is his regular business card. And Side 2 is a free offer/coupon kinda deal from 1 of 3 businesses ($100.00 restaurant gift card, free house cleaning, free massage.) In order to keep track of stuff he wants each set numbered 1 to 100. No problem, right? Well obviously there is one because I can't get this to work.
When I create my numbers the problem I run into is that everything comes up all screwed up in the Imposition Tool. The cards are 24 up, double sided, on a 12"x18" press sheet. And instead of it being all the Side 1s on one side and all the Side 2s on the other, I'm getting this checkerboard sort of deal. So it'll be SIDE1/SIDE2/SIDE1 and so on.
So this means that If I print and cut these, I'll have a cards with Side 1 on both sides, and a card with Side 2 on both sides and two different numbers on each side.
Obviously, I don't want to hand insert 600 pages worth of cards, any ideas?
Easy answer would be to run it as if it were two different single sided jobs. Then you do not have the complication of mixed fronts and backs on the same side.
For side 1: create a file of 1 page for the front. Flow it into the imposition template so that it repeats 24 times to fill the sheet. Print as many sheets as you need to print the job.
For side 2: create a file of 1 page for the back, then perform print merge on it so that you have as many pages as you need cards. Flow it into the same imposition template so that it creates as many sheets as is needed to complete the job. Then print it on the back of the side 1 sheets.
Slight problem is that you'll end up having to hand-collate the cards after you have cut them. For 100 cards that's not too bad. If you were doing 24,000 of them you would want to rearrange the serial numbers so that they come out in the order 1,1001,2001 across the top of the first sheet, 2,1002,2002 across the top of the next, so they come out pre-collated and only need guillotining.