Collating a PDF

I had to print 55 sets of Arctic Incidents for CRRC last week.  For some reason, sending the 5-page pdf to my printer (Xerox 8200) 55 times did not result in collated sets.  “Collate” was checked by default so I unchecked it and tried again.  No dice.  Still not collating.  I finally figured out that I when I send the document (in this case an InDesign file) to the Adobe writer, I have to say 55 copies and collate.  It creates a huge document that then prints perfectly.  Only drawback really (besides remembering to do it) is that it takes a little longer to create the pdf.