how to make a zine on linux when all you know is libreoffice, be bisexual, and eat hot chip

assuming you want to do the cheapest and easiest thing possible and use regular 8.5x11 paper, folded in half hamburger style, and the nearest black and white duplex printer:

  1. in libreoffice, set the page layout to width=5.5” and height=8.5”
  2. set all the margins to 0.5”
  3. set the Gutter to 0”
  4. IF YOU WANT A HEADER OR FOOTER FOR PAGE COUNT MAKE IT NOW
  5. if you don't want the front page to have a “1” in the footer (it's the first page), do this
  6. type your zine
  7. drop your images in (make them black and white in gnu image first)
  8. lots of fussing
  9. literal days of fussing
  10. export to pdf
  11. go to https://nashhigh.itch.io/zinearranger or git clone https://codeberg.org/nashhigh/zine-arranger and run locally with python3 -m http.server --directory ./
  12. load your PDF
  13. select “half size”
  14. choose “Print” (to PDF)
  15. send file to the printer (godspeed)
  16. print duplex (may the lord be with you)
  17. staple THEN fold
  18. complet

thank you https://nashhigh.com/ for this beautifully simple zine arranger tool

i could not find a complete guide for how to go from “all i know is libreoffice and linux” to “i printed a zine” using only free software, so i am scribbling this down