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Choosing an imposition mode
What each of the four modes is for, how they differ in page ordering, and how to pick between them when more than one would technically work.
The four modes differ in exactly one respect: what they do to page order. Everything else — sheet size, grid, gaps, scale, bleed, marks, duplex — is common to all of them. Choose the mode by asking what the finished piece does after it leaves the press, not by asking what the sheet should look like.
| Mode | What it does to page order | The job it suits |
|---|---|---|
| N-Up | Preserves it. Consecutive pages fill the grid left to right, top to bottom, then the next sheet. | Proofs, handouts, reading copies, ganging several different artworks in a chosen order. |
| Step and Repeat | Ignores it. One page is placed into every position on the sheet. | Business cards, labels, tags, tickets — one design produced in quantity. |
| Cut & Stack | Redistributes it down the pile, so each sheet position carries a contiguous block of the sequence. | Numbered tickets, vouchers, sequential forms — anything that must stay in order after the guillotine. |
| Booklet | Pairs it inward: last with first, second with second-to-last, and so on into the centre. | Saddle-stitched booklets, programmes, zines, folded sections. |
The deciding question
Ask what happens to the sheet after printing, in order, and the mode falls out:
- Is it folded and stitched? Booklet. Nothing else imposes a fold sequence.
- Is every position the same artwork? Step and Repeat.
- Must the trimmed pieces come off the guillotine already in numerical order? Cut & Stack.
- Otherwise, N-Up.
When more than one would technically work
N-Up against Step and Repeat
A single-page source imposed N-Up on a 3 × 6 grid and the same page imposed Step and Repeat give you the same sheet. The difference only appears when the source has more than one page: N-Up will start placing page 2 in the second position, Step and Repeat will not. Use Step and Repeat when you mean this one artwork, everywhere, because that intent survives someone else opening the job later. Use N-Up when you are ganging several different pieces and want control over which lands where.
N-Up against Cut & Stack
Both place a sequence of pages across a grid, and on screen the sheets look similar. The distinction is whether the sequence runs across the sheet or down the pile. If the job will be collated by hand anyway, or read as loose sheets, N-Up is simpler to check and simpler to explain. If the run is long enough that hand collation is a real cost, Cut & Stack pays for itself immediately — but it only works if the printed pile stays in press order all the way to the knife.
Booklet against 2-up N-Up
A 2-up N-Up sheet and a booklet sheet both carry two pages side by side, and this is the substitution that catches people out. N-Up will give you pages 1 and 2 next to each other; folded, that reads 1, 2 on the same side of the leaf, which is not a book. Booklet gives you 4 and 1 on the outside and 2 and 3 on the inside, which is. If the sheet is going to be folded, use Booklet.
What does not change with the mode
Every mode takes the same sheet formats, the same page range, the same rotation and scale, the same single bleed allowance, the same gaps, the same crop marks, and the same duplex and back-flip pair. Learning the controls once means learning them for all four modes.
None of them rasterises anything, and none of them touches colour. See format notes.