I've fought through the "Shaping the Page" chapter in Bringhurst, and -- much though I admire the precise reckoning that it represents -- at the end of the chapter, I'm left with frustration as I work on the particular sorts of page that I typically lay out.
As a teacher, I produce very many documents, which I often prefer to distribute on two columns on a landscape orientation. I find that readers respect a well-laid-out page that looks as if it were photocopied from a book more than they do a page that's printed out in a typical one-column portrait layout. Default two-column settings in Word or Pages, though, involve various minor vexations that sum up to the conclusion that there must be a better way. I have InDesign 2.0 (Mac), but my forays into InDe pages have not been reliably successful.
The attractive alternative would, of course, involve setting one-up pages of ideal dimensions, then printing them two-up; but Apple's print engine does odd things with margins when printing two-up, and I'm not clever enough to out-think the print engine.
Is there a source of wisdom, whether here on the boards or in a tutorial somewhere, for producing two-up landscape pages that allow consecutive page numbering on facing pages (don't think a word processor will do that one) with moderately clear, reproducible dimensions for the text box, the page number, running heads (if needed), harmonious margins, and so on? In other words, that simulate a book page layout printing on an 8.5x11 letter page?