I’m looking for linux software or plugin that, in addition to putting the front and back cover side by side on the same leaf etc, allows me to subdivide a long pdf into sections of 8 leaves or so, which can each be printed and stapled, before final assembly of the sections into a pamphlet or booklet.
It would make me very happy if it runs locally, rather than being a web page.
Does anyone have experience with this kind of thing?
Is it possible to print PDF as booklet?
And if not please tell me what software you make the zines in.
This write-up details what zine printers are going for and has suggestions on how to go about it.
In my case I haven’t made any zines, I’m talking about the physical format. I suppose I could have asked this in c/technology, but I was picturing a zinemaking hobbyist being familiar with the technical issues. I’m actually wanting to print a programming manual from pdf and assemble it into a handbook.
I know of this web page that can do the arranging, but it assumes a pdf brief enough that it can all be stapled at once, and it’s online-only.
It seems that you have found a solution and if it works you should use it. However I think it is a little bit much for the simple task.
Outside of punk rock, zines are called “brochures”, “booklets” or sometimes “pamphlets” and they can be printed natively in many/most situations without need of special software. I actually don’t do it in linux much because my printer hates double sided printing but on both Mac and Windows you can organize it in “Page Setup” in most situations. I use the native Page Setup dialogue to convert full page PDFs to half-page zine-style documents for convenient reading. If you want to create a PDF you have to use a “print to PDF” option. It’s a little different depending on the environment though.
https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/swriter/guide/print_brochure.html - libreoffice
https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/printing-booklet.html - ubuntu general
https://www.arj.no/2026/02/12/print-booklets/
https://man.archlinux.org/man/pdfbook2.1.en - if you do want a cli tool
https://toggen.com.au/it-tips/gnu-linux/booklet-printing-in-linux - this person’s instructions are weird and probably not useful, but they are showing the Page Setup dialogues you should look for
If you have a letter sized document and print to a4/letter paper, the layout will be a little off because of the proportions of the proportions. So if there is for example, an image which is supposed to extend across 2 pages, it’ll have a gap in the middle.