Setting up the page spread

[mdesigns]

Hey all,

Need your advice.

First time user of Affinity Publisher (or any design tool) & working on my comic book creation.

FYI:

• I am using Affinity Designer for creating the art work.
• All art work is blank & white, and exported as transparent PNG
• I am using the Trial version of Publisher app on my Macbook

I have 3 questions:

(1) How do I get boxes around my artwork? I tried using the Rectangle box, but it sits over the artwork and I couldn't get it to appear behind it.

(2) How do I plan my page spread for the book front cover, the back cover & inside pages? 

1. Besides my content pages, I have the following also - book title page, publisher details & Introduction. I may have Contents and an Index page as well. 
2. Please see the attachment on the layout I currently have based on the document setup. There is a Page 1 by itself up at the top. Is that the Cover page?

(3) How do I insert page numbers?

(4) How do I include a Header and/or a Footer on every page of my artwork?

Thank you so much for your time and looking forward to hearing from you all!

 

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @mventures

(1) What do you mean by “boxes around my artwork”? There are many ways to interpret that so a visual example may be useful.

(2) How you plan the spreads for the book will differ from book to book and we don’t have enough information to advise properly. One thing you can do is to look at Master Pages. The Page 1 in your example can be used as a cover page if you want to use it as such but it doesn’t need to be.

(3) You can insert page numbers by creating an Artistic Text layer into the document – or a master page – and then using menu “Text → Insert → Fields → Page Number”.

(4) Again, look at using Master Pages.

[Old Bruce]

11 hours ago, mventures said:

(1) How do I get boxes around my artwork? I tried using the Rectangle box, but it sits over the artwork and I couldn't get it to appear behind it.

 

Set the fill of the Rectangle to clear. The little circle with a red line through it. 

[carl123]

11 hours ago, mventures said:

(1) How do I get boxes around my artwork? I tried using the Rectangle box, but it sits over the artwork and I couldn't get it to appear behind it.

If you mean a stroke, go to the stroke panel and add it there

[mdesigns]

Thank you all for getting back to me! Much appreciated.

Just addressing the "boxes around my artwork" matter.

I was referring to a rectangular border around my drawing, just like how you see in a comic book. I think you could call this a panels or frames also?

I am thinking if I should insert the border in Affinity Designer and just import that over to Publisher. But not sure if I can edit the size of it in AD after import.

@GarryP

I will try the MASTER page setup.

1. Is there a video tutorial I can refer to?
2. Will it copy over the specs I have already set on the entire document?

@Old Bruce

Please see the screenshot attached. It has the Clear option checked, but the image is not coming through.

@carl123

Please see the screenshot of the Stroke option. Does that look incorrect?

[GarryP]

If you just want to give the image layer an outline then you have a few choices, see attached video.

• Choice one – wheat – add a Stroke outline to the layer (as per carl123’s suggestion) – you can also use the Context Toolbar instead of the Stroke Panel.
• Choice two – balloons – add an Outline Effect (will always have a rounded corner when not Inside).
• Choice three – village – put a rectangle behind the image – image can alternatively be placed inside the rectangle to make it easier to move both at the same time.

You will need to experiment with each technique to find the different options that are available.
Each method has it’s own pros and cons so choose whichever is best for what you want at the time.
There will probably be other techniques that don’t spring to mind at the moment.

As for Master Pages, the official video tutorials are probably the best starting point: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/publisher/desktop/
I don’t know what you mean by “Will it copy over the specs” but watch the videos and try things for yourself and you will probably be able to answer that for yourself.

[mdesigns]

Thank you so much @GarryP! I shall try everything and see how it goes. Any further questions from me, I shall be back.

[GarryP]

You’re welcome.