Multipage Imposition

Let the spatial reasoning games begin! As you move beyond single pieces like business cards, you won’t be surprised to discover that things get a bit trickier.

When multipage pieces are imposed, the sheet is folded and trimmed to become a group of printed pages, called a signature. Depending on the page size, the press capabilities, and the type of binding to be used, a signature could comprise 8, 16, 32, or more pages.

This might be a good time to get a little destructive in the name of science. Buy (or borrow) a weekly news magazine and leaf through it. The pages appear, as you might expect, in reader’s spreads: 2–3, 4–5, 6–7, and so on.

But pry out the staples at the center of the magazine and note how the pages were ...

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