Page flipping in InDesign

[CES020]

I'm having a tough time figuring this one out. I'm using InDesign and I need to flip the pages so they print the mirror image. However, I'm using a data merge and it's probably 20-30 pages and when I do them 1 page at a time, it just chugs away super slow. I'm doing that using the flip horizontal button in the "Object-Transform" section.

When I do a print preview, I can see at the bottom, it's got a "P", showing it's right side up. In Illustrator, I can pick "emulsion side down" or something like that, and it flips it. However, I can't seem to find any setting like that at all. But I think it's got to be there, or why would they put the "P" down there showing it's not mirrored?

I'm working on a PC, but I also looked on the Mac and while I did manage to get the "P" to show up on the tool bar some how, it appears to have an function. I can't click it and make it mirror or anything.

Clearly I am missing something. When I have to do 20 pages, it takes about 30-60 seconds per page, so that's a solid 10-20 minutes just trying to get them flipped.

Please help I know I'm stupid with InDesign, but I just can't find it. I don't see it in the setup for my particular printer either (by going into printing preferences from the print dialogue box).

 

[HulkSmash]

Do you have "facing Pages" selected in page setup?

You can copy paste, right click transform, reflect.

 

[CES020]

Let me clarify something, in case I muddied it up. I'm trying to make it print reverse, not display reverse. So I want to see it all nice and normal and when it prints out, it's backwards

 

[Myte]

Isn't that just a setting/preference you choose when clicking "print"?

 

[CES020]

Isn't that just a setting/preference you choose when clicking "print"?

That's what I'd think, but it's grayed out where is says "Flip" in the output box. Here's a screen shot.... This is from a Mac, but it does the same thing on the PC.

 

[SebastienL]

I think it as something to do with you printer.
I created a new file and hit print to see what option I could use. I changed the printer in the printer selection box and the "flip" option box lit up. It works also when PDF is chosen as a printer. So maybe that's an option, output to PDF and print from Acrobat.

 

[CES020]

Thanks! Okay, so I now have another question about it. If I select "PostScript", then in the box under it "PPD", my printer, then it shows the flip option. Is there any problem with my selecting PostScript, and then my printer, where as before it was just my printer and the "PPD" part was blank.

Will that work, or does that do something I probably won't like?

Thanks-

 

[SebastienL]

Honnestly, I don't know. If your printers appears, then maybe try with one page.

 

[CES020]

I'm back with my same issue here but with a few changes. Maybe someone that uses InDesign can help me.

I have something simple, like a layout for 2 name tags. Just 2 simple name tags, 1 1/2" x 3" or something like that. If I select them and hit the "Flip Horizontal" button, it takes probably 15 seconds for it to complete the task. If I have several pages of them, and try to flip them all, it can take a couple minutes to just "mirror" them.

I have InDesign CS4 on a PC and InDesign CS5.5 on a Mac. Both do the same thing. The Mac is years newer, so it doesn't take as long, but it's still struggling with simple tasks like a "flip".

If I'm in Illustrator, it flips it instantly. If I flip it in InDesign, it's causing issues. In some cases, it will actually crash InDesign completely.

Since it's happen on two platforms, on 2 different releases of the software, I'm thinking I surely must have something set up wrong on both machines.

Any ideas? Can someone with InDesign setup something like a simple rectangle and some text and try and flip it and see if it's instant? Or maybe put 10-20 of them on a page and try to flip them all at once?

HEEELLLPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!! Please

 

[mopar691]

I have always noticed if doing any design changes like this in ID it is slow as it actually open illy or ps in the background to alter what you are changing. InDesign itself is not flipping it but is making a new object via AI or PS.
If you have a big font list and a older pc the lag is waiting for the application to open. If you have them open in the background already sometimes it can help speed this up.

 

[jfiscus]

Never tried it this way before, but it seems to be taking quite a while to print to a PDF "flipped", I think my ID is actually froze/locked also. This is on my week-old I3-2100 solid-state graphics PC... so there's a problem with ID somewhere.

I would print a normal PDF, then make a new ID document & place the PDF files in there (flip the whole page after placing it). Then if you have to print it directly from ID or if you have to make changes, simply overwrite the PDF & update the other ID doc's links and you'd be ready to go (quickly).

I've always flipped the pages in the RIP if I needed reverse print, as I don't print directly from Adobe products.

 

[CES020]

I tried opening Illustrator and then flipping it in ID, but it was no faster. Same issue.

It was something I needed to data merge, and it the original was created in Illustrator, but when I brought it in from Illustrator, the colors were different. No matter what I did, with all the colors set the same, ID printed a different color than Illustrator. I even had someone come in and look at it that knows a lot more about it than I do, and they left without a reason and they couldn't make the colors match either.

So I resorted to just doing it all in ID, so I could know it was all the same and all what I needed.

I can't believe that would be normal behavior, and it's been like that for at least 2 product releases now. I can't find anything about it in Adobe's support. I can't believe it's been that way for several years and not one support issue on it? Something doesn't seem right.

I still think I have something set wrong that makes it do that.

 

[Techman]

Inddy is slow whenever you do anything other than normal printing. I do booklets and it takes a long while to get it done. It must format every single page every time it prints each one.

 

[richsweeney]

Mirror

Could you just hit the mirror key for each page, then print ?
I just took a pdf, (a small one) and brought it into id, hit the mirror key, then exported back out to a pdf in a flash.

It could be the print function is in adobe is buggy.
What about using the rip to mirror it ?

 

[ForgeInc]

is your preview set to high quality? are you using hires images? try making your preview draft i think it's called. it might not be a matter of the program or actual process, but rather rendering the change.