Looking for someone to connect with to help me learn Publisher

[MJR]

Greetings All,

New to Publisher, have watched many tutorials, but I would like to connect with someone that would have some spare time to help me to learn some basics regarding, setting up center-stapled books, & setting up for regular book format.

My first project I created was a planner which would be center-stapled.  I didn't realize that the pages will be laid out different than a book.  How do I change the book format into a center-stapled format?

This forum can be great, if you know how to ask the right questions, and you also have to understand what the replies mean.  This is why I would like a penpal/forum/Zoom Publisher buddy.

Thanks to all that reply,

Keep safe, I'm in Canada,

[firstdefence]

To create a centre stapled book and to understand what goes where, physically make one out of A4 sheets, so fold an A4 sheet over to make two A5 sheets you do that by folding it such that the two shortest sides meet, write front, back and then number the pages, add gutters near the staples and any margin you want top, bottom outside edge, then deconstruct it and see how it is laid out on the flat A4 sheets of paper. This will show you the pattern that is required, then you can recreate those patterns in publisher. Real world examples are always a good teacher.

[AlanPickup]

May be worth looking at this post to get you started. This is good if you are printing it yourself, if sending to a print house just export as pdf using all pages and they will sort out the page order

 

[wonderings]

4 hours ago, firstdefence said:

To create a centre stapled book and to understand what goes where, physically make one out of A4 sheets, so fold an A4 sheet over to make two A5 sheets you do that by folding it such that the two shortest sides meet, write front, back and then number the pages, add gutters near the staples and any margin you want top, bottom outside edge, then deconstruct it and see how it is laid out on the flat A4 sheets of paper. This will show you the pattern that is required, then you can recreate those patterns in publisher. Real world examples are always a good teacher.

Great advice and something done by many people in print when trying to figure something new out. Years ago we used to manually impose and this is what we would do for magazine signatures, make a physical dummy which would show how it needs to be on press. 

[MJR]

Thanks @firstdefence & @wonderings, greatly appreciated.  I did make a mockup/dummy.  I had to really think about what went where.  I will check out what @AlanPickup has replied with.  But is there a way to rearrange my current facing pages to reflect the actual center-staple layout?  How can I move or change one page with another, without redoing all the pages?  Right now I have designed it like a book with facing pages (pages 2 & 3 are displayed at the same time on screen).

[MJR]

Thanks @AlanPickup for the forum link, greatly appreciated.  Will need to review the posts several times to get a better understanding.  Still a little confused whether I can leave the design/page layout the way it is, which each page shows exactly how the facing pages will be as a finished project, or do I need to redo the pages to reflect the way it needs to be printed, for a center-staple booklet.

[firstdefence]

You would need to redo the pages for a stapled book because on each folded sheet the pages are not sequential until the front most page.

So say for a 26 page booklet 

Page1: - Back | Front

Page2: - 1 | 26

Page 3:  - 25 | 2

Page 4: - 3 | 24

Page 5: - 23 | 4

Page 6: - 5 | 22

Page 7: - 21 | 6

Page 8: - 7 | 20

Page 9: - 19 | 8

Page 10: - 9 | 18

Page 11: - 17 | 10

Page 12: - 11 | 16

Page13: - 15 | 12

Page 14:- 13 | 14

etc the number patterns are a kind of zig zag with one going up and one going down. 

How many pages do you have in this booklet?

[MJR]

Thanks @firstdefence, greatly appreciated. 

You example shows 26 pages.  I read somewhere that the page number should be divisible by a factor of 4.

My project is 44 pages.  I will have to move some of the page design around to get what I need, visually.

Is there a way to do the page number to reflect how the pages are to be designed, as in you sample.

Looking at your sample are you suggesting that I should modify my page to show a design representative of two pages, but is only one page, or is there a way I could move the pages around to get the page representation I need, like, facing pages of page1/page 26.

You can probably see that I am somewhat confused as to the design direction I should learn to create a booklet/magazine.

[firstdefence]

Morning MJR,

7 hours ago, MJR said:

You example shows 26 pages.  I read somewhere that the page number should be divisible by a factor of 4

I just picked a random number of pages to show how the numbering pattern was laid out.

7 hours ago, MJR said:

Is there a way to do the page number to reflect how the pages are to be designed, as in you sample.

I honestly don’t know if it’s possible to do in an automated way if the assumption is to use a single page to represent two pages.

There may be a way to do this if the document is set up to have facing pages and then print two pages to a sheet. It starts to get messy because the numbering would have to be in reverse for every other one, so you would probably have to manually add numbering for one side  but you can create a master page with standard numbering i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6… to part of the document.

7 hours ago, MJR said:

Looking at your sample are you suggesting that I should modify my page to show a design representative of two pages, but is only one page, or is there a way I could move the pages around to get the page representation I need, like, facing pages of page1/page 26.

I was working on the assumption of a folded sheet of paper so that an A4 sheet would create an A5 Booklet or an A3 sheet folded would create an A4 booklet. In Affinity Publisher that would be laid out as an A4 sheet in landscape mode with a centre line (Guide) to indicate the staple line and two guides either side of that centre line to represent a margin line.

 

7 hours ago, MJR said:

You can probably see that I am somewhat confused as to the design direction I should learn to create a booklet/magazine.

It’s not a simple thing to do so it can be confusing at the best of times, just takes a bit of working out but that’s part of the creativity. 😀

So a choice has to be made, Facing pages and number one half of the document and print two to a sheet, or folded paper and have to manually number each side of the page?

I’m sure there are more knowledgable people on here who will give their advice and possibly experience in creating this type of booklet.

[AlanPickup]

The way I do a booklet, which can be either be printed and wire stitched or used as an online version, is to set the page to the finished page size then use the facing page option for design and editing. How it is used is controlled by the export or print options in Publisher. Prior to the COVID situation I produced a number of newsletters, up to about 36 pages, each month. How have you started your book? If single pages in an as they follow order you have no problem, if you have split a sheet in two with margins / columns then you may have a problem.

Back in the sixties when I ran a jobbing printing and duplicating service, like the previous poster said, we would arrange the type in the chases using the  principle that first defence listed. If it was for photolitho it was just a case of pasting the proofs in the right order, which got even more complicated it you were printing 8 pages or more per plate. Now this is all done by software.  I wonder if anyone else had the experience of doing this with duplicating stencils? Church magazines were small run and could not afford the cost of printing, so we used to type 2 pages per stencil then work out which pages went where and cut the right hand page off the stencil and re-glue them back in the right order for folding and stitching.

Happy to help if you want to message me direct, as I am virtually doing nothing at the moment with COVID

[wonderings]

I think you are talking about manually imposing. Are you printing this yourself or sending it to a print shop? If you are sending to a print shop do not worry about imposing it and setting it up for print. Set it up facing pages as you want it to be when finished, the print shop prepress will do the rest. They will have imposing software that does this in a second.

If you are going to be printing this yourself, what are you printing with? Most digital presses with a Fiery front end using Command Workstation will have the basic saddle stitch imposition built into them. 

[MJR]

Thanks @firstdefence, @AlanPickup, @wonderings, greatly appreciated for your replies.  It is clear that I should check with my local printer to get his take.  I may have to wait a bit because of how many businesses have closed for Covid-19.

It would be great to leave my design in facing pages & the printer does the software configuration.

You guys have given me lots to think about.

Stay safe,

Cheers,

[wonderings]

I am in Ontario, print shops are all open here as they are defined as essential services. If you are in Quebec you will not be so lucky.

If you were sending it to me I would want the PDF in single pages, but you can export as single pages with crops and bleeds from Publisher from a document set with Facing Pages. I can't imagine any print shop would want you to actually impose for them, if they did I would be question the quality and knowledge they have in the industry. 

[MJR]

Thanks @wonderings, I'm in Alberta.  Will phone printing company today to see if they are open.  This printing company does a fair amount for self-publishers.

In Publisher, is there a way I could convert my facing pages into single pages?

[wonderings]

6 minutes ago, MJR said:

Thanks @wonderings, I'm in Alberta.  Will phone printing company today to see if they are open.  This printing company does a fair amount for self-publishers.

In Publisher, is there a way I could convert my facing pages into single pages?

I would have thought so, I cannot find it. In Indesign is it just a check, export as spreads or single pages. If the option is in Publisher I could not see it. Took me a while to even find adding crop marks. When you go to export>PDF there is a "more" button at the bottom of the dialogue box. Click this and in there are many options, most of which you do not need to touch. Near that bottom of that new dialogue box is an option to include printer marks. Select that. Personally I would only want crop marks. Now unless the wording is weird I see nothing for making single page PDF automatically.  You might have to go into document setup and uncheck facing pages and then export as PDF like that. 

[MJR]

Thanks @wonderings, will try some export options to see what happens.

[thomaso]

On 3/29/2020 at 4:17 PM, MJR said:

Still a little confused whether I can leave the design/page layout the way it is, which each page shows exactly how the facing pages will be as a finished project, or do I need to redo the pages to reflect the way it needs to be printed, for a center-staple booklet.

With your 44 pages document you might prefer to leave the pages in their layout order and use APub's print option "Booklet" to get the page rearrangement auto-done by APub. (From the print options window you still can save as PDF instead printing on paper.)
 

9 hours ago, MJR said:

In Publisher, is there a way I could convert my facing pages into single pages?

Yes, but I guess you don't need it for your approach. If you want a single page export then just choose the according setting in the export options window, Area > All Pages.

In case you really want to convert your layout document from facing spreads to single pages: it's an option to un-tick in "Document Setup":

If converting from facing to single be aware that it might result in unexpected occurrences, e.g. for images which are placed over the middle of a spread or text which is aligned relative to the spine.

 

[MJR]

Thanks @thomaso, that's helpful.  Going to try to connect with my local printer to see how he will need the files sent to him to get it to work the way I need.