Default Margins

[Mandoleer]

I'm wanting to set my A4 / A5 (and indeed all) my default margins to 10 mm all round as my work is mainly for laser or photocopier printing. 25/25/25/30 may be OK for book set up or something, but for 32 page A5 mags that only need open end trimming 10/10/10/10 is fine. I started out on PageMaker 3.0 on Mac and taught it for a time on Mac (with plug in hard drives...) and then on PC with PM 3.0 on Windows 3.1. I finished on PM at 7.0, and then taught a colleague how to use PagePlus (without having learned it myself). She has PP X9, but I've got PP8 (on XP), and recently acquired Affinity Pub 1.8.5.703 (or thereabouts...) on Windows 10 and am now getting my head round it. I never found out how to change the default margin on X8, but I cheat by using previous issues as templates. It's still a damn nuisance having to reset when I do single sheet work. I know that margins are only a guide, but they make life so much easier. Back on PM, these defaults could be set. I'd like to change the defaults for text wrap too. (I also acquired Photo, and had Designer on a Win 7 machine but never did much with it. Having the three together side by side is great as I can tidy up the pics sent in before they go to press.)

Edited December 20, 2020 by Mandoleer
correction

[v_kyr]

Hi and welcome,

see Documents and Presets here in the Publisher online help ...

• Create new documents
• Document setup
• Open documents
• Document templates
• Colour models
• Setting bleed
• ...

 

[Mandoleer]

Sorry about being late in replying. Thanks for your answer, but I've already discovered that help feature - and found it unhelpful. (I've continued using PP X8 on XP in the mean time.) Now that I've got a bit more time to myself, I've got to get my friend into working Publisher on her Mac. She, like me, wants a 10 mm all round margin, and wants to set it as default, as do I. The standard default is useless to us, and resetting every time we create a publication is a damn inconvenience. We both know how to SET margins and fonts. We want to know how to KEEP the settings for all documents we open, be it on A4, A5. or A6. We don't want a string of templates - we just want a ready to use 10 mm every time we open. (And which we can ignore when doing online posters that don't have a printer/copier edge requirement). BTW we could do with setting a default gutter as well - 8.5 mm is not much use when printing A6 labels 4 up on A4. We know we're not up at the high end of the market. We're not producing glossy magazines because the societies and charities we do work for can't afford glossy magazines. But they want something better than they can produce for themselves on MS Word etc.

[PaulEC]

AFAIK you can't change the settings for the default new documents. The easiest thing would be to create your own presets exactly as you want them, but you seem to be against that for some reason. Personally I don't have a problem changing the margins for each new document, it's not really a major problem and it makes it quicker if you enable the "uniform margins" lock so you only need to enter the size in one box. I'm not sure why you're using a gutter setting when printing labels, I would have thought it better to use guides, but that is also really quick to adjust with the mouse wheel in the context toolbar.

[walt.farrell]

Creating your own Presets for your common needs, @Mandoleer, or creating Template files, would be the way to go.

[Mandoleer]

Thanks very much. We've been having a brainstorming session and ended up creating a flock of templates (one of which got away, and was discovered roosting in the cloud...). The labels I refer to are ones for pasting onto things, not the self-adhesive Avery sort. (I use LibreOffice for those as I have to print most of them from a database.) These are printed in sheets on A4 and either hand guillotined by me or scissor cut by whoever. We can't print to the edge of the paper, and to allow for older machines we use 10 mm as a basic setting. (I'm still using an HP LaserJet 5P from the 1990s - I've had it nearly 20 years now). 20 mm gutter gives a safe 10 mm all round. We're feeling pleased with ourselves at the moment because we've taken a PP created file from XP and moved its contents into AP on a Mac and updated the info in it, and created new versions for new people (this is a double sided business card which was a bit of a b to set up in the first place for assorted reasons). Once again, thanks.

 

[Mandoleer]

" it makes it quicker if you enable the "uniform margins" lock so you only need to enter the size in one box. " - OK, I've looked everywhere I can but I can't find a 'uniform guides lock'. Either in the Help or on Bing. I found 'Lock guides', which as I expected locked the guides on the page. This is on the Win 10 machine, in case that makes a difference, and version 1.9.2.1035.

[walt.farrell]

Just now, Mandoleer said:

" it makes it quicker if you enable the "uniform margins" lock so you only need to enter the size in one box. " - OK, I've looked everywhere I can but I can't find a 'uniform guides lock'. Either in the Help or on Bing. I found 'Lock guides', which as I expected locked the guides on the page. This is on the Win 10 machine, in case that makes a difference, and version 1.9.2.1035.

The quote was about "uniform margins", not "uniform guides".

You could try using Column Guides from the Guides Manager, perhaps.

[PaulEC]

18 minutes ago, Mandoleer said:

" it makes it quicker if you enable the "uniform margins" lock so you only need to enter the size in one box. "

Sorry, maybe I'm using the wrong term, it's really a link, rather than a lock!. In the dialogue where you set the width of the margins there is a small symbol just to the right of the four boxes, if you click on that you can "Edit all margins together".

[Mandoleer]

Thanks for the speedy replies. In my post I didn't really mean locking guides _ , but the margins in the Guides Manager. Lock guides was the only thing I could find and I knew that that was something else. In my Guides Manager (from the View menu), I get the four boxes and nothing alongside other than the up and down arrows on each box. There's a colour box underneath. I think there's another place that I found once but can't again for setting margins. (I'm getting a bit confused at present as I'm having trouble with leading and am trying to sort that out as well.)

[Old Bruce]

1 minute ago, Mandoleer said:

think there's another place that I found once but can't again for setting margins.

Use the Move tool and select nothing. Look at the Context toolbar for Spread Setup and click on it.

Now you will see the 'link/lock/chain....'

5 minutes ago, Mandoleer said:

(I'm getting a bit confused at present as I'm having trouble with leading and am trying to sort that out as well.)

Best to start a new thread.