Getting started
- Open your PDF (Ctrl+O, or drop it on the window): one page per finished page, ideally with 3 mm bleed. Or start from a sample on the start screen.
- Print Imposition reads the page size and picks a layout; change it on the Layout tab.
- Check the Preflight tab at the bottom: trim and bleed, fonts, RGB and image resolution.
- Pick the sheet (Best sheet lists every sheet that takes the job) and the press margins in Properties.
- Check the order with the Folding dummy and Reader spreads.
- Save the Imposed PDF (Ctrl+E), and a proof for the customer.
Everything happens in your browser. Your PDFs are not uploaded. The job and its PDFs are kept in this browser so it is there when you come back; Save job (Ctrl+S) makes a .m2imp file of the settings.
Layouts
- Booklet (saddle stitched): sheets nest inside each other and are stapled through the spine. Page 1 shares a sheet with the last page. Blanks are added before the back cover.
- Perfect bound (Pro): signatures (US: forms) gathered one after another, ground off and glued or sewn. Blanks go at the end.
- N-up: different pages in order, several to a sheet: 2-up and 4-up free, more in Pro. Double sided pairs the pages front and back.
- Step & repeat: one item filling the sheet - business cards, labels, flyers. Double sided puts page 2 on the back, mirrored so it backs up.
- Cut & stack (Pro): numbered work, numbered down the pile so stacking the cut stacks puts the numbers in order.
- Gang-up (Pro): several jobs of one size share a sheet, with the slots shared by quantity.
- Tile (Pro): a poster split over several sheets with an overlap to join.
Signatures and fold schemes
A signature is one sheet folded into a section. Fold schemes are named in the CIP4/JDF style: F16-7 is a 16-page section with three right-angle folds, F16-6 a 16 with a head fold then two parallel folds, F8-7 8 pages, F4-1 a single fold, F32-9 32 pages. F6-1 and F12-14 are there for 6 and 12-page sections.
Every scheme is checked by simulating the folds and reading the pages back off the folded section. The Signatures table shows ✓ fold dummy when the pages come out in order, heads up, with the spine where it should be. Pages printed head to head are turned 180°: that's right, the fold brings them round.
Choose how a book splits with Signatures in Properties (for example 16s, or 8s), and the scheme for each size with Fold scheme.
Work styles
- Sheetwise: a front plate set and a back plate set.
- Perfecting: both sides in one pass on a perfecting press.
- Work & turn (Pro): both formes side by side on one plate, the sheet turned side to side between passes and cut in half: half the plates, two copies per sheet.
- Work & tumble (Pro): the same, turned head to tail, so the gripper changes edge.
The plate and sheet counts in the status bar and the Sheets table update as you switch.
Creep and the spine
In a saddle-stitched book the inner sheets stick out at the foredge by the thickness of the sheets wrapped round them. Creep (US: shingling) moves those pages towards the spine so the trimmed margins match. The shift is the number of sheets outside × the caliper × the factor (1 for most stocks). Set the caliper under Creep and stock; the innermost shift is shown there, and you can hover a page for its own.
For perfect binding, the spine width is the leaves × the caliper plus 0.6 mm for the glue, and the grind-off and spine gap are in the Signature group.
The sheet view
The sheet is drawn to scale with your real pages, the gripper margin hatched at the leading edge, fold lines dashed and cuts solid. Drag a page to nudge it in its slot (it snaps back to zero); arrow keys move it 0.1 mm, Shift + arrow 1 mm. Space-drag or drag the background to pan, scroll to zoom, M to measure, F to turn the sheet over, Page Up / Page Down for the next sheet.
Front, Back and Both, ghosted: the last shows the back as it shows through the front, labelled, so you can check that pages back up.
Folding dummy and reader spreads
The Folding dummy folds the sheet step by step on screen, then turns the section over and reads the pages off, with the check written underneath. Output > Folding dummy prints an A3 sheet to cut out and fold by hand.
Reader spreads shows the job as the reader sees it - page 1 alone, then 2-3, 4-5 - with blanks and creep marked. Click a page to find it on the sheet.
Gang-up
Add each job's PDF on the Gang tab, or import an order list as CSV (name, quantity). The optimiser shares out the slots so every job needs about the same number of sheets, which gives the fewest sheets for the run and keeps the overs (extra copies) small. The Gang plan view compares the balanced plan with equal ups; click one to use it, or set the ups by hand. The guillotine cuts are numbered on the sheet and listed in the job ticket.
Marks
Crop and fold marks stand clear of the bleed (offset, length and weight in the Marks tab). Fold marks are dashed; cut marks between foredges are solid. Pro adds registration targets, a colour bar on the tail, collating marks (a staircase on the spine so gathering errors show) and the slug line. Marks print in registration colour on all four process plates.
Preflight
Preflight reads the PDF and reports what affects printing: no trim box or too little bleed, page sizes that don't match the job, fonts not embedded, RGB images or colours, images below 250 ppi at their placed size (below 150 marked to fix), spot colours, transparency and the PDF/X output intent. Click an issue to go to its page. It never changes your artwork: fix it at source and use Replace PDF to keep the layout.
Output
- Imposed PDF: one PDF page per sheet side. Pages are placed as vectors (Form XObjects), so fonts, vectors, spot colours and overprint are kept exactly; nothing is rasterised. Each page is clipped to its bleed so it never prints over a neighbour.
- Proof: the same, with page numbers over the artwork, for checking.
- Folding dummy: an A3 sheet to print, cut out and fold.
- Job ticket (Pro): sheets, signatures, fold schemes, creep, spine, the gang plan and the cutting guide.
- Templates (Pro): save a job as .m2imp and open it for the next job.
Always run a proof before plating.
Free and Pro
| Free | Pro (£14.99 a month or £129 a year) | |
|---|---|---|
| Booklets (saddle stitched) | Up to 32 pages | Any length |
| Perfect binding and signatures | - | ✓ |
| Fold schemes | The standard 4, 8 and 16 | The library: F4-1, F6-1, F8-7, F12-14, F16-6, F16-7, F32-9 |
| N-up | 2-up and 4-up | Any number |
| Step and repeat | One item, 1 or 2 sided | ✓ |
| Sheets | Up to SRA3 | Up to B1, and custom |
| Work and turn / tumble | - (sheetwise and perfecting) | ✓ |
| Creep | - | ✓ |
| Gang-up optimiser | - | ✓ |
| Cut and stack | - | ✓ |
| Tiling | - | ✓ |
| Marks | Crop and fold | Plus registration, colour bar, collating marks and slug |
| Preflight, folding dummy, reader spreads | ✓ | ✓ |
| Imposed PDF | No watermark | No watermark |
| Job ticket, cutting guide, templates (.m2imp) | - | ✓ |
Anything can be set up and looked at in the free version; a banner says when a layout uses Pro, and exporting it asks for Pro. Pro starts with a 7-day free trial.
Keyboard shortcuts
| Action | Keys |
|---|---|
| Open a PDF | Ctrl+O |
| Imposed PDF | Ctrl+E |
| Save the job (.m2imp) | Ctrl+S |
| Undo / redo | Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y |
| Find a command or page | Ctrl+K |
| Zoom in / out / fit | Ctrl+= / Ctrl+- / Ctrl+0 |
| Nudge the selected page | Arrows (Shift: 1 mm) |
| Next / previous page on the sheet | Tab / Shift+Tab |
| Next / previous sheet | Page Down / Page Up |
| Turn the sheet over | F |
| Measure | M |
| Pan | Space + drag |
| Dark mode | Alt+D |
| Help | F1 |
On a Mac, use Cmd for Ctrl.
What's new in 1.0
9 November 2026 - the first release: saddle-stitched and perfect-bound booklets with the fold-scheme library and a folding dummy that checks every scheme, n-up, step and repeat, cut and stack, the gang-up optimiser, tiling, creep and the spine, sheetwise, perfecting, work and turn and work and tumble, crop, fold, registration, colour bar and collating marks, preflight, reader spreads, the imposed PDF with vectors kept, proofs, the job ticket and templates. Six samples on the start screen.
Coming next: a cover and spine part for perfect-bound covers, bottling, generating bleed for PDFs without it, and batch imposing.