I have an application where I have defined several postcard layouts as 4x6 virtual pages. I would like to print these nine-up on 12x18 paper.

Here is the tricky part: there is a field in the data (layoutid) that defines which of the Planet Press virtual pages should be used for any given record. The data will NOT be ordered by layout ID, so every physical page will be a quiltwork of layouts.

What is the ideal way to accomplish this?

I have tried using the built-in N-Up feature but this object only accepts one virtual page argument, yet I need the pages to be dynamically placed.

I have tried using nine Planet Press Talk objects per physical page, using "execpage(field('layoutid'))" to call the layout. This works except that I cannot figure out how to advance the data page for each position like the N-Up object does.

Your help would be appreciated.

I played with this some more and discovered a solution that seems to work.

I made another 4x6 virtual page, which I named BufferPage. I placed a Planet Press Talk object on the BufferPage with the code "execpage(field('layoutid'))". Then I put an N-Up object on the main 12x18 page that executes the BufferPage in a 3x3 matrix and checked "advance data page with each repeat." While this doesn't look right in the design tool, it previews correctly so I'm sure it will print OK.

I'm still open to ideas but this was pretty straightforward and seems to work.

Thanks,
Greg

A real simple way is to have your virtual page blank and do all you variable cards on overlay pages. Assign those overlays to the virtual page. You place your condition on the overlay pages.