HornPenguin
HornPenguin is the name I use for my personal work in publishing, printing, and bookbinding. I collect books and enjoy making them, and these interests have led me to develop software for preparing printed pages.
The practical details of making a book involve both design and computation: arranging pages, planning folds, and preparing a layout that will work on paper.
Booklet
I created and maintain HornPenguin Booklet, an open-source Python application that turns PDF documents into files ready for booklet printing and bookbinding.
Imposition means arranging pages on a sheet so they appear in the correct order after printing, folding, and binding. Booklet automates this step and prepares signatures—the folded groups of pages that make up a bound book.
The application supports:
- different signature sizes and imposition layouts;
- page-size adjustments;
- printing marks, including trim and color marks;
- left-riffling layouts for traditional East Asian binding.
Source code and usage instructions
Other interests
HornPenguin also provides a home for ideas about binding patterns, book previews, and documentation on paper folding and page arrangement. These broader interests are outlined in the organization’s project overview.
Booklet is the concrete software project featured here; the other topics describe the wider scope of my interest in making and sharing books.