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Old 04-08-2015, 04:49 PM   #1
mehrkat
 
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Default Printing GURPS books on Lulu

Hi,

I'm finally getting around to trying to trying to print a few books (mainly the ones I want to pass around the table). It seems that unless I want rather dinky printings Lulu is my best option (though I haven't quite made it all the way through the process)

PS if anyone knows of a better printer please feel free to offer suggestions.

For any of the folks who use LULU I'm having a little logistical trouble and want to make sure I'm understanding it correctly.

Lulu breaks up the PDF and the Cover as two different images. Is there a way to print the GURPS pdf and just use the first page of the PDF as the cover page. Currently it looks like I need to make a new cover and back cover art to print or have a blank cover or at least unlabeled cover. Does anyone know of a way to just give them the one document and get a printing?

Also is the standard SJ games PDF formatted correctly to print on 8.5 by 11 in paper that is bound. I know it prints and staples ok but I'm not sure about an actual binding?
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Old 04-08-2015, 04:53 PM   #2
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Default Re: Printing GURPS books on Lulu

It sounds like the simplest fix would be to use software like pdfsam to extract the first and last page of the PDF into its own, two-page PDF. Then just give them that as the "cover."
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Old 04-08-2015, 05:44 PM   #3
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Default Re: Printing GURPS books on Lulu

Last time I used Lulu it required you to upload images for the front and back cover, or to use the Cover Designer to help you create the cover (with or without images; you can do a cover with just text or even completely blank). At any rate, there was no way to upload a PDF to use as the cover. This suited me alright because I was printing compilations, so I was happy to create my own covers for them, and I'm reasonably competent image editing in Paint.net, Photoshop, and similar software.

One thing I will note is that if you use the cover designer then Lulu will put a UPC barcode on the back cover (you have some ability to control placement, but not much). However if you create a custom image to their specs they won't add the barcode.
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Old 04-09-2015, 10:20 AM   #4
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Default Re: Printing GURPS books on Lulu

thanks for the responses. It looks like splitting off the cover page for printing is the way to go.
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Old 04-09-2015, 12:18 PM   #5
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Default Re: Printing GURPS books on Lulu

Ok, my advice, use PDFSaM to break the PDF into 3 files: Cover, Back Cover, and contents. Now use Inkscape to open the cover and back cover, and export them to PNG. If you need more hand holding, just request it here and I'll see if I can whip a more comprehensive tutorial.
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Old 04-14-2015, 11:43 AM   #6
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Default Re: Printing GURPS books on Lulu

I ordered a few books. I had a few stops and starts with getting a usable image for the cover. I finally found something that I think worked but won't know until I get the printed copies.

The PDF cover didn't come out very clear in the first draft so I finally had to import with very fine and put into another program and save it from there.

If what I did doesn't work i may ask for a bit more advice for the next printing run.
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Old 05-09-2015, 09:54 AM   #7
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Default Re: Printing GURPS books on Lulu

I've been thinking of printing some GURPS books myself from the pdfs on Warehouse 23. How did yours turn out from Lulu? What was the process like for you? (It seems like it wasn't too difficult from above.) Are you happy with the way everything went? Any tips for other users?
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Old 05-09-2015, 08:52 PM   #8
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Default Re: Printing GURPS books on Lulu

I'm really happy with the results. They beat the heck out of anything else I've seen.

For about $20 including shipping and tax i can get four paperbacks 8 1/2 by 11 perfect stitch in the 50 page range.

With the powerups series I printed 2 pdfs per book separated by theme.

I wasn't crazy about the splitting off the PDF and wound up using a snipping tool that let me make an image file from what showed on the screen and in some cases just making my own cover with the cover creator on Hulu. No graphics but I was happy with it over the time to make a good image.

There are regularly coupons and they are needed to get the $20 price. I'll try to take some pictures and post them somewhere.
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Old 05-10-2015, 09:27 PM   #9
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Default Re: Printing GURPS books on Lulu

We've had a couple other threads on printing & ordering from Lulu in the past, I even posted pics of one of the books I ordered (I've now done four, and some day want to do a fifth but haven't gotten around to it). I highly recommend you check some of them out, or just do a search of these forums for Lulu.
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Old 05-13-2015, 03:03 AM   #10
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Default Re: Printing GURPS books on Lulu

Quote:
Originally Posted by mehrkat View Post
I wasn't crazy about the splitting off the PDF and wound up using a snipping tool that let me make an image file from what showed on the screen and in some cases just making my own cover with the cover creator on Hulu.
One trick I've learned is that some photo-editing software can import PDFs directly. Yes, you're working with flattened pages-as-images at that point, and I wouldn't try importing multi-page PDFs that way, but it's an option. A couple of the "series title logo" images on this website came from that process.
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