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B5 booklets from JIS B4 sheets

B5 is the size Japanese manga is drawn and printed at. Two B5 pages fill a B4 sheet turned sideways exactly, which is why photocopied fan books are almost always made this way.

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These are JIS B sizes, not ISO B

Japan uses JIS B: B4 is 257 x 364 mm and B5 is 182 x 257 mm. ISO B4 is 250 x 353 mm — close, but not the same, and a file cut for one will not fit the other. This tool imposes to JIS B, so a B5 spread is 364 x 257 mm and lands on B4 landscape with nothing left over.

What to do without a B4 printer

Home printers usually stop at A4. Japanese convenience-store copiers handle B4 at roughly 20 yen a monochrome sheet, and self-service copy shops take it too. Outside Japan, B4 stock is rare — scaling the whole book down to A5 on A4 sheets gives a cleaner result than fighting for B4 paper.

Photocopy or commercial print run?

Under about thirty copies, photocopying wins on cost. Past a hundred, offset or print-on-demand is cheaper per copy and looks better. Commercial orders take unimposed single pages. Bleed, trim marks and paper thickness differ from printer to printer — always check the spec sheet of the shop you are submitting to.

Frequently asked questions

Which B standard does the output use?

JIS B. Sheets are 364 x 257 mm and pages are 182 x 257 mm. If you need ISO B4, use the custom size fields in the bleed job and type the dimensions directly.

Can I print a B5 book on A4 paper?

Not at full size — a B5 spread is 364 mm wide and A4 landscape is only 297 mm. Switch the finished size to A5 so the pages scale down, or find a B4-capable copier.

What resolution should manga artwork be?

Bitonal line art is usually 600 to 1200 dpi and greyscale 350 to 600 dpi. Imposition places the images already embedded in your PDF, so nothing is resampled or degraded here.

Common presets

Booklet and zine print prepSaddle-stitch impositionA5 booklet on A4 sheetsBunko-size bookletPerfect-binding gutter shiftBatch page numbersHidden gutter foliosBleed and trim marksA5 with bleedB5 with trim marksSpine width calculatorEight-page zine on A4Eight-page zine on A3

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