# Reordering columns across pages [duplicate]

I'm producing a pamphlet, so I'm using the twocolumn option to \documentclass, and \usepackage[landscape]{geometry}. The goal is to print out some pages, and fold each 8.5"x11" sheet along the middle, nest the folded sheets, and staple down the middle. I've got the layout looking pretty nice, but I realized that I need to not only print two-sided, but I need to permute the columns to get them in the right order in the pamphlet.

To put this very explicitly, in the case of two folds of paper forming the pamphlet we get eight columns in total, and they must be ordered like this:

\documentclass[12pt,twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage[landscape,margin=1cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{nopageno}
\setlength{\columnsep}{2cm}
\begin{document}
\huge\centering
% First fold.
8 \newpage
1 \newpage
2 \newpage
7 \newpage
% Second fold, inserted inside the first.
6 \newpage
3 \newpage
4 \newpage
5
\end{document}


So, if you print this document out two sided, and then fold the second page and insert it into the first folded page, you get a nicely ordered pamphlet, with the columns sequentially numbered.

Does anyone have any advice on how to automatically reorder the columns according to this rule? Alternatively, maybe there's an entirely different way to do it? For example, I could separate each column into its own true page in the output PDF, then script pdftk to permute the pages, and print two pages per physical sheet of paper, but I don't want to lose control over the inter-column spacing.

Thanks,

## marked as duplicate by cfr, Masroor, Werner, Paul Gessler, JesseOct 2 '14 at 0:28

• See my answer to another question. That question is about problems with booklet but the basic task is the same. Note that only solution 2 (which does NOT involve booklet) is currently working, as far as I know. The disadvantage of solution 2 is that it requires 2 files. The advantage it has over solution 1 lies in the fact that it works. – cfr Sep 30 '14 at 20:49
• @cfr -- i haven't used booklet myself, and i'm glad to be warned about problems. if the information you mention in your other comment regarding booklet is suitable, i will be happy to point it out to will robertson, who is listed as the booklet maintainer. – barbara beeton Sep 30 '14 at 21:22