When printing a brochure, how can I print a vertical line down the centre fold?

I print out brochures and then cut them into two separate pages. However, I find it difficult to cut the pages exactly on the centre line? I’d like to be able to print a vertical line on the landscape page, at the point the two document pages meet.

Can I do this?

.

Can I do this?

Yes. It depends on your layout.

If you use columns so you can insert a separator line just in the middle of the sheet (menu Format | page | columns).

If you use a table it is also possible to check this with borders (additonally you can define some paragraph indents)…

If you use frames…

… for more advice specify your question (EDIT your question).

EDIT1

Couldn’t you print out as “2 pages per sheet” and add Draw a border around each page? In this case LO 6.3.3.2 only added a separator line between the pages (contrary to former editions, AFAIK).

.
.

.
.
See screenshot of Adobe Reader:

.
.


.

EDIT2

So print out as a simulated brochure. You print out as 2 pages per sheet and add Draw a border around each page. But instead of the regular order arrange the pages as single ones in brochure order. See screenshot (German GUI, should be self-explaining).

But it isn’t possible to do this using the brochure printing mode in the print window? My document is laid out as one page per page with margins; it would be a tremendous amount of work to refactor it into columns.

That’s a good thought and I’ve tried it, but a. printing two pages per sheet knocks all the pages in the document out of order (they need to be printed like a brochure so the right pages are on the left and right and back to back), and b. the “print a border” option appears to do nothing at all.

@Vashti wrote:

they need to be printed like a brochure so the right pages are on the left and right and back to back

see EDIT2 in my answer.

b. the "print a border" option appears to do nothing at all.

My PDF screenshot shows exactly the opposite. It is a virtual print-out on a PDF printer (“See screenshot of Adobe Reader”).

I know, I see that it works on your PDF printout, but it doesn’t appear on my print preview and it doesn’t appear on the output from my printer. I’ve updated to the latest release and still nothing.

I didn’t realise you could print pages out of order like that! That looks promising. However, I’ve gone with ajlittoz’s vertical line option below. Thanks for your efforts on my behalf.

This is an ugly workaround.

In Brochure mode, two document pages are printed side by side on a sheet of paper, which means the right border of first page “touches” the left border of the second page. Since it is not possible to tell the print driver to add a line between the pages, the solution is to add a line in the pages themselves.

If you have a header (or a footer) in your document, it is quite easy. Otherwise add one and adjust the margins so that it does not change the size of the area where your document is formatted.

  • in the header, Insert>Shape>Line>Line and draw approximately a vertical line (exact size and orientation do not matter)

  • right-click on the line and Position & Size

  • in the Rotation tab, make sure angle is 90, 270 or 0° (depending on how you drew the line)

  • in the Position & Size tab, set height to be the same as page height, eventually adjust the width (a hair line is enough for the purpose)

  • in the same tab, make sure Anchor is set To paragraph (this setting proved to work best in my experiment)

  • at bottom Position need to be set as:

    • Horizontal relative to Right paragraph border (again it proved to work better than other choices) and set distance From left to the value of the page right margin minus a small amount (say 0.01-0.02 cm)
    • Vertical is Entire page at Top

Line colour may be changed with right-click on line and Line, Line tab.

The thumbnail in the print dialog now shows the pages with their right border line. But, considering that printers have non overridable mechanical margins, the line at extreme right should not print, being so close to the sheet border.

To show the community your question has been answered, click the ✓ next to the correct answer, and “upvote” by clicking on the ^ arrow of any helpful answers. These are the mechanisms for communicating the quality of the Q&A on this site. Thanks!

In case you need clarification, edit your question (not an answer) or comment the relevant answer.

This appears to work beautifully. Thank you! You don’t happen to know if it’s possible to anchor these lines to a page style? (I already have a content frame on each page)

The page style does not record the content of the header/footer.

But, since you seem to repetitively issue brochures, you can design a template as an empty brochure. A template can not only contain styles but also initial content. After storing your template in the correct directory (with File>Templates>Manage Templates, you just File>New>Templates, instead of the common File>New>Text Document (Ctrl+N) and you start with a preset document.

Fantastic. I will do this. Thank you!