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My granddaughter asked me to write "My Grandfather's Story" book. So, I bought all three Affinity products and started the project not knowing what I was getting myself into. I purchased Affinity Revolution's "Affinity Publishing for Beginners". I followed along with Ally and set up an A4 preset. I have 101 pages in the book and realized I set up the magazine preset and not a regular book with a binding for 101 pages. I'm now stuck on what to do and can't figure out what preset to use and how to allow for gutter, margins etc. Do I need to start all over again, or can I do the setup in the A4 preset I have already used? I know the book must be setup right before I get it printed.  I have searched YouTub looking for any videos that would answer my questions, but have found them to be lacking in exactly what I'm looking for. Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated. I was going to upload the book, but didn't think putting it on the blog was a good idea.

Thank You,

Michael 

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Thank you Catshill for your response,

 I’m sorry, I know about masters, but what is an Abu file master etc, and how do I set one up? If I need to set it up in Affinity, what preset do I choose or what is the process. You mentioned having a Word backup. I first created the doc using Word but have added a lot to it after I placed it into Affinity. I assume I can save the Affinity file and convert back to a Word formate if I need to in order to create and APu file. I have put 6 months of work into this book and must get it right. I thought I was the book ready and then realized my mistake.

 
Thank you for your patients. 
 
Michael

 

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21 minutes ago, EkimEnaid said:

what is an Abu file master

I think Catshill is simply referring to a master page in Affinity Publisher. (You create it when you set up the document, and/or you can add master pages later.)

21 minutes ago, EkimEnaid said:

I assume I can save the Affinity file and convert back to a Word formate

No, you can't convert/export to Word (doc/docx) from Affinity Publisher. You can copy and paste text from APub to Word/Libreoffice etc, but you will lose much of the formatting.

Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz :  32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home
Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

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☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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Thanks PaulEC,

So when I open a new document, how do I create a doc that I need for a regular book bonding? I'm guessing I can't choose a preset. I need a size book like An A4 preset has. Do I choose that one? 

Catshill says to, set up a new file master pages, spreads, layout, gutters, bleed and margins. Then setup text styles. Create blank pages and then import the text.

Do I start with a preset like A4, or do I choose another way to set up the doc like Cathaill is talking about?

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See as a help this tutorial, you can download the accomplished template files (inspect them in APub and adapt to your needs):

 

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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3 minutes ago, EkimEnaid said:

Thanks v_kyr,

I want the book to be hardback not paperback. Is there any templates for a hardback book or am I better making the book paperback to avoid anymore frustration?

An Affinity Publisher document is agnostic. One will do for hard cover and paperback.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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1 hour ago, EkimEnaid said:

I want the book to be hardback not paperback. Is there any templates for a hardback book or am I better making the book paperback to avoid anymore frustration?

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

An Affinity Publisher document is agnostic. One will do for hard cover and paperback.

This all depends very much on how you are getting this book printed and bound. For example, if you are using KDP (Amazon) they supply cover templates that you can download. (There are different sizes for hardback and paperback.) If you are using a pro printing company, you really need to ask them most of these questions about sizes, margins, gutters etc.) 

Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz :  32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home
Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

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Wow, I had no idea what I was getting into 👀! So, form what you're saying I prob need to use KDP Amazon templates and then - would I get the one copy, plus a photo book to go with the story, printed form them? I'm thinking going the other route, first finding a Pro Printing Co. etc  would be, well whatever. What do you think?

 

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I would suggest you have some thinking to do before you home in on a supplier of templates!

Even before talking to your printer, make sure you have some idea of the number you will have printed - who will buy it? This will help determine the way the printer wants to set up the book. You mention the number of pages (101). Is this 101 SIDES of paper (pages!) or the number of A4 sheets of paper to be used - printed on both sides and thus halving the number of sheets of paper. Then there is the thickness of the paper, which defines the width of the spine. If you are aiming for a high quality product, you will probably want to use thick (-ish) paper. Copier paper is about 70 gsm (grammes per square metre): decent letterhead paper about 100gsm. Translating this into thickness is not straight forward but for a book of this size you can probably work with 0.5cm to 1cm per 100 sheets. As others have said, Affinity is agnostic to the type of binding, but your printer may have an opinion, based on the calculated thickness.

Most printers will also want your colour mode to be CMYK (i.e. 4 different colours which mix to form the required colour). Screens prefer an RGB profile. You will need to check every image file (in APhoto) and , if necessary, convert the mode (Document>Convert format).

You will probably want the "inner" margin to be wider than the "outer" margin, which is something that APub does automatically when you set up "facing pages". (If you do this, your output will be on 26 sheets of A3 (101/4)). If you do not use facing pages, you will need two Master pages - one with the spine on the left, the other with the spine on the right.

Printers also have their preferred file format. It is possible that you might find one who can use APub files, but it is much more likely that you will be asked for a PDF file. There are many varieties of PDF file and you need to check that your printer can handle the same versions that APub can export (highly likely). This also means checking that any imported PDFs are compliant.

Alternatively, some publishers/printers have software which takes a file of assorted A4 sheets and does all this thinking for you.:)

Either way, after a few books it becomes second nature. If only to be able to make informed decisions, as @PaulEC says, it is worth getting quotes from local printers, quizzing them about their requirements and asking for their recommendations.

Good luck.

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14 hours ago, Ralph said:

You will probably want the "inner" margin to be wider than the "outer" margin, which is something that APub does automatically when you set up "facing pages". (If you do this, your output will be on 26 sheets of A3 (101/4)).

It's worth mentioning that very few pro printers will want facing pages. Make sure to keep a copy of your APub file, so that you can go back and edit the PDF if you need to do so. You can't open a facing pages PDF and change it to single pages!

Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz :  32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home
Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

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Thanks, @PaulEC. I forgot that bit!

And thanks for your kind comment @EkimEnaid. For the sake of completeness:

Create the Apub file with Master pages set for "facing pages", then export to the agreed (with printer) PDF format. That gives the printer single pages to layout on his stock paper in any manner he pleases. For example, if you want (say) 100 copies of a 100 page book, a big printer might run it off over lunch on a laser printer :). They might even prefer facing pages and cut the resultant output on a guillotine. If you want (say) 1000 copies of the same book, they might lay it up on A0 (or bigger) paper, using their software to make sure the pages come out in the right order. 

Which reminds me that, when you ask for quotes, get a few for different numbers of copies. Because of the time needed to set up the job, the actual cost of printing can be relatively small [(Cost) = (Setup) + (Number)*(Cost per copy)]. You may get a a lot of extra copies for very little cost.

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