add a front cover to a booklet

[Martin AS]

I am using Affinity Publisher 1.10.5 and also have Affinity Photo an a Mac running Monterey.

I am trying to put together a small program booklet for a dance school. I am using 2 sheets of letter size (8.5x11) to be printed back to back. I have 7 pages of participants etc on 8.5x5.5 sized pages. I know that the pages have to be a multiple of 4. The one page not completed would be the front cover with picture and title. How do I add it???

With the 7 "pages" of 8.5x5.5 I tried adding a "page" to the front....Did not work. Added to the last and also did not work. In both cases the printer called for 5 letter size sheets. Yes Booklet was selected.

I tried setting the 7 pages to print again in "booklet" and viewed it as a pdf. Looked great, on 4 sheets, but the area of the front cover was blank. Everything was where they should be... but no cover. With a few sheets of paper there is no need to worry about binding width etc.

How can I add an image/ wording etc to form a front cover and then save as a single pdf file.

Help is appreciated

Martin

[firstdefence]

Would it be easier to create a document with 8 single pages of 8.5 x 5.5 and add the cover image to the first page?

the art of dance.afpub

[thomaso]

13 hours ago, Martin AS said:

I tried adding a "page" to the front....Did not work. Added to the last and also did not work.

What does "did not work" mean exactly? How did you try to add the page – how did APub react?

[PaulEC]

Why not just start with eight pages?

An alternative would be to design it as two pages to an 8.5 x 11 sheet and manually print double sided, if that's easier on your printer.

 

[Martin AS]

Thanks for the thought. That is exactly what I have done in the past when not using Publisher. I felt Publisher was the way to go and ran into a road block. I have since had to go back to the old way, as the job had to be done. Now I will follow up on the Publishing her route.

Thanks

[Martin AS]

On 5/18/2022 at 5:29 AM, thomaso said:

What does "did not work" mean exactly? How did you try to add the page – how did APub react?

The printer arranged the pages and then added extra sheets.

[Martin AS]

On 5/18/2022 at 4:52 AM, firstdefence said:

Would it be easier to create a document with 8 single pages of 8.5 x 5.5 and add the cover image to the first page?

the art of dance.afpub

This is what I was trying to do. I have run your example and was pleased. I even changed your auto text to page numbers to see if all came out in the right order. They did. I am writing from an iPad so cannot try at the moment. Later I will substitute my text over several pages and see what happens.

I am still not sure what has gone wrong and will follow up
 

thanks

Martin

[PaulEC]

1 hour ago, Martin AS said:

The printer arranged the pages and then added extra sheets.

I'm not sure if this is what went wrong in this case, but as a general rule, don't set booklet settings in both the APub interface and in the printer's own preferences, choose one or the other. (It will depend on your printer what settings are available.)

You might find it easier in the long run, just to export your document as a PDF (single pages, in the order they should be in the publication, not imposed) and print from a PDF reader, such as Adobe Reader or Foxit.

[Martin AS]

Good point. I will double check my settings.

Thanks

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Martin AS said:

On 5/18/2022 at 10:29 AM, thomaso said:

What does "did not work" mean exactly? How did you try to add the page – how did APub react?

The printer arranged the pages and then added extra sheets.

The printer? Here you said you tried:

On 5/17/2022 at 9:26 PM, Martin AS said:

I tried adding a "page" to the front....Did not work.

As you mentioned already, you need a even number of pages, for brochure or book print it must be multiple by 4. Thus I wonder why you can't setup the document accordingly. What happened, when you »tried adding a "page" to the front« ?

[Martin AS]

53 minutes ago, thomaso said:

The printer? Here you said you tried:

As you mentioned already, you need a even number of pages, for brochure or book print it must be multiple by 4. Thus I wonder why you can't setup the document accordingly. What happened, when you »tried adding a "page" to the front« ?

core\ct, I had tried adding a page (5.5x8.5) to make up the 8 required. The printer added one whole sheet of 8.5x11.

[Martin AS]

6 hours ago, Martin AS said:

This is what I was trying to do. I have run your example and was pleased. I even changed your auto text to page numbers to see if all came out in the right order. They did. I am writing from an iPad so cannot try at the moment. Later I will substitute my text over several pages and see what happens.

I am still not sure what has gone wrong and will follow up
 

thanks

Martin

To all who have offered help... Thank you.

 

I was trying to do exactly as   "first defence" had suggested and I thought that was the route I had followed. However it did not work and hence this help call. I am not sure what the problem was. Possibly I borrowed a master page from an earlier project??

In any case I followed what "first defence" offered and totally recreated my project....... and all is good. I have learned a few things on the way and sincerely thank all for their inputs. Great to have this community. (still not really sure what went wrong.....but...)

Thanks again

Martin

[thomaso]

Glad you managed to solve it. However, I am still curious what might have caused your experience. Maybe you can upload the affected document – or a screenshot of its Pages Panel with all page thumbnails visible? (you can undock + scale the panel)

[Martin AS]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

Glad you managed to solve it. However, I am still curious what might have caused your experience. Maybe you can upload the affected document – or a screenshot of its Pages Panel with all page thumbnails visible? (you can undock + scale the panel)

Here are three shots that might help. One is of the "pages" and  another is of the result of printing to pdf. Also a shot of the printer screen showing 5- 8.5x11.0 sheets being called for.

 

Thanks

Martin

[Martin AS]

ooops forgot the third file...

 

 

[thomaso]

47 minutes ago, Martin AS said:

Here are three shots that might help.

Hm, I still don't understand how this document is set up and what you tried to do or what failed or could never work actually. It appears just confusing. For instance, the Pages Panel let me assume 7 pages (or more? – it doesn't show because the panel width is set too narrow. Note, you can manually drag this panel edges to even fill the entire screen and overview a few dozen page thumbnails this way) – whereas the print dialog mentions 5 pages only. In none of your screenshots I see any hint for the required 8 pages. – Nevermind, I don't want to bother you. You solved it, that's fine!

[Martin AS]

Yes, there were a total of 8- 5.5x8.5 inch pages to the actual document but the printer is actually referring to 5 full size 8.5 x 11 inch pages. When I scrolled across the pdf file there were 5- 8.5x11 inch sheets. Yes I agree very confusing but glad I have it working now thanks to interactions with people on the forum.

 

Thanks to all

Martin