1. What it does
You have a finished PDF for a business card, postcard, ticket or label: one page for the front, and optionally a second page for the back. SvarogImpose repeats that design on a larger sheet (A4, A3, SRA3, Letter, 12 × 18 in and others). It handles bleed, gutters, a sheet margin with an optional gripper allowance, and crop marks, and it places the backs so that they land behind the fronts when the sheet is turned over. It writes new files: an imposed PDF, a duplex test sheet, a job sheet with cut-line coordinates, and a settings file. Your original PDF is only read and is never changed.
The design is never scaled. If it doesn't fit, SvarogImpose tells you why, and tells you how many would fit if you rotated it.
2. What you need
- The file
SvarogImpose.htmlfrom the download. There is nothing to install, no account to create and no internet connection needed. - Google Chrome. Version 152 on Linux is the tested setup; see section 13.
- A print-ready PDF. Ideally it has a TrimBox and a BleedBox, as PDFs exported from InDesign, Affinity or Illustrator with bleed usually do.
Unzip the download, then open SvarogImpose.html in Chrome. You can double-click it, or drag it into a Chrome window. The page loads with nothing in it and explains what to do.
3. First result in one minute (worked example)
- Press Load the example card. This loads a fictional "Hollowfen Bindery" business card. It is 85 × 55 mm with 3 mm bleed, and has a front page and a back page. Each corner of the card has its own colour, so you can check the orientation.
- Leave the default settings: A4 portrait, 5 mm sheet margin, 3 mm bleed, no gutter, and crop marks 2 mm from the bleed and 5 mm long.
- Check the result. It should read 8 per sheet, 2 columns × 4 rows, and offer a button saying that rotating the design would fit 9.
- Press Download imposed PDF.
Expected result. The PDF has two A4 pages. On page 1, the first card's finished edge is 17 mm from the left edge of the sheet and 29.5 mm from the top. Page 2 holds the backs. Each back's yellow corner sits exactly behind its front's green corner. The purple slug in the example file is outside the bleed, so none of it appears on the sheet. The examples/ folder has the expected PDF and pictures for comparison:
examples/expected-imposed-A4.pdf rendered by Ghostscript, an independent PDF reader.4. Use your own PDF
- Click Choose a PDF or drop it here, or drag a PDF onto that area. You can also reach it with the keyboard: press Tab until it is focused, then press Enter.
- Step 1 shows the boxes it found (MediaBox, CropBox, BleedBox, TrimBox) and the page rotation, for the front and the back.
- Check Finished size comes from:
- Automatic uses the TrimBox if the PDF has one, and otherwise the whole page.
- The whole page means the file has no bleed.
- The page minus bleed I enter is for PDFs exported with bleed but without a TrimBox.
- Set the sheet and spacing in step 2 (see section 6), review the result, then export.
5. Supported files and limits
| Accepted | One unencrypted PDF, up to 50 MB, with 1 page (front) or 2 pages (page 1 front, page 2 back). The finished size must be between 10 mm and 1000 mm. The front and back must have the same finished size, within 0.05 mm. Page rotation can be 0°, 90°, 180° or 270°. Box origins that aren't zero are handled. |
|---|---|
| Refused, with a reason | Password-protected or encrypted files; damaged or non-PDF files; more than 2 pages; JavaScript, launch or submit actions, or automatic actions anywhere in the file (document, page, link or bookmark); interactive form fields; digital signatures, including signature-based usage rights; a missing or malformed MediaBox. Plain web links and page-jump bookmarks are accepted, but links are not copied to the sheet. A TrimBox or BleedBox that is malformed, or that falls outside the page, is ignored and you get a warning. |
| Not carried over | Annotations and links, layer visibility (optional content), page-level transparency group settings, the output intent and document metadata. A warning appears when the file contains these. The artwork is placed as vector content and is not converted. However, spot colours, overprint and colour profiles have not been verified to survive unchanged. Proof critical colour work first. |
| Sheet | Presets A4, A3, SRA4, SRA3, US Letter, Legal, Tabloid, 12 × 18 in, 13 × 19 in, or a custom size of 50–1300 mm. Up to 500 pieces per sheet. |
6. Layout settings
| Units | The mm / inch switch converts every length field. |
|---|---|
| Sheet margin, gripper | Nothing is placed inside the margin. The gripper allowance adds extra space on one edge, for printers that need it. |
| Bleed per side | How much artwork beyond the trim to keep. It can't be more than the bleed your PDF contains. |
| Gutters | The gap between neighbouring bleed edges, set separately for columns and rows. With a gutter of 0 the bleeds touch, and each cut line still has its own crop marks. |
| Crop marks | Lines in 100% black (K), 0.25 pt wide, placed outside the block at every finished edge. The offset is measured from the outer bleed edge. |
| Rotate design 90° | Turns the design a quarter-turn counter-clockwise on the sheet. The summary tells you when the rotated layout fits more. |
| Columns / rows | 0 means "as many as fit". A smaller number places fewer pieces, and the block stays centred. |
| Sides and turn-over | A 2-page PDF becomes front and back automatically. Choose how the sheet is turned over: left ↔ right (around the vertical edges) or top ↕ bottom (around the horizontal edges). Tick head-to-foot for backs that are read after flipping a piece vertically. |
| Back offset X / Y | Moves only the backs, between −10 and +10 mm. +X is right and +Y is up, as seen when you look at the back side. Measure the offset with the duplex test sheet. |
7. Review the result
- The summary shows how many pieces fit per sheet, the columns × rows, the sheet size, the finished size with bleed, and the back mode.
- Switch between Front sheet and Back sheet to check where pieces go and which way they face.
- Yellow warnings list anything from your PDF that won't be carried over.
- Use Open imposed PDF in a new tab to see your actual artwork in Chrome's PDF viewer before you print.
Screen viewers that smooth edges can show a hairline of slug or mark colour where two bleed edges touch (gutter 0). That line is inside the bleed between pieces and is cut away. The independent check at print geometry found no slug pixels. If you want a clean gap, set a gutter of 1 mm or more.
8. Export and reopen
| Download imposed PDF | svarog-<name>-imposed.pdf. Page 1 is the front sheet, and page 2 is the back sheet when printing two-sided. |
|---|---|
| Duplex test sheet | …-duplex-test.pdf, two pages. See section 9. |
| Job sheet (TXT) | …-job-sheet.txt. It contains the source name and SHA-256 fingerprint, the boxes used, every setting, each piece's position, and the cut-line coordinates measured on the PDF page. These coordinates describe the file's geometry. They aren't cutting-machine instructions. |
| Everything as ZIP | All of the files above, plus the settings. |
| Save / Load settings | A small JSON file you can reuse for the next job. Settings files that are invalid, non-finite, or larger than 64 KB are refused. |
File names are cleaned up to letters, numbers, dots and dashes. To reopen a result, open the PDF in any PDF viewer, or print it from there. Exporting never writes to your source file; results are new downloads handled by Chrome's normal download settings.
9. Duplex test sheet
Printers and drivers turn sheets over in different ways, and paper can shift as it goes through. Before a real run, print the 2-page test sheet double-sided on your production paper, with the same driver settings you will use for the job.
- Hold the printed sheet up to the light. Each FRONT crosshair should sit inside the matching BACK crosshair scale. The ticks are 1 mm apart.
- If the back crosshair appears to the right of the front one when you look at the back side, enter a negative Back offset X. Do the same for Y.
- If the backs are upside down, switch The sheet is turned over to the other option.
SvarogImpose can't measure your printer. Duplex registration, paper movement and cutting accuracy must be checked on paper.
10. Troubleshooting
| "provides only 0 mm of bleed" | Your PDF has no bleed beyond the trim. Set Bleed to 0, or re-export with bleed. If the page already includes bleed but has no TrimBox, choose The page minus bleed I enter. |
|---|---|
| "does not fit the usable area" | Use a larger sheet, or smaller margins, marks or gutters. You can also try Rotate design 90°; the message tells you whether rotating would fit. |
| "different finished sizes" | The front and back pages must have the same finished size. Export them as a matching pair. |
| "encrypted", "JavaScript", "form fields", "signed" | Export a plain, unprotected, flattened copy of the design from your design application. |
| "has 3 pages" | Version 1 accepts one design: 1 page, or 2 pages for front and back. Export just those pages. |
| Backs upside down or swapped | Change the turn-over option, or tick or untick head-to-foot, then print the test sheet again. |
| Nothing happens on download | Check Chrome's downloads list. Some setups ask where to save each file. |
11. Privacy
SvarogImpose runs entirely inside the browser tab. It doesn't upload or send your files, and it doesn't load fonts, scripts or anything else from the internet. The page's built-in security policy blocks network access. Files are only saved when you press a download button.
12. Uninstall
Delete the unzipped SvarogImpose folder. Nothing else is installed. Files you exported stay wherever you saved them.
13. Tested environment and limitations
- Tested on Google Chrome 152.0.7977.82 (headless, fresh profile) on Ubuntu Linux 22.04 (kernel 5.15). Every page action was driven through the real page, and the exported files were checked with Ghostscript 9.55. Other browsers and operating systems are not tested and not claimed.
- Verified digitally against hand-calculated positions: the number of pieces, their positions, clipping to bleed, crop-mark positions, page rotation, and back mapping for both turn-over modes, head-to-foot backs and back offsets. Test fixtures came from Ghostscript, Chrome and a hand-written PDF.
- Not verified: physical printing, duplex registration on real devices, cutting, colour accuracy, spot colours, overprint and ICC profiles. This is a layout tool. It does not preflight files or produce PDF/X.
- Out of scope: mixing different designs on one sheet, variable data, booklets, page reordering, and automatic printer or cutter control.
SvarogImpose uses pdf-lib (MIT licence) and the libraries it bundles. See THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt. All sample content is fictional and first-party.