How do people create covers in Publisher?

[Sunil Wu]

I've imported a word document into Publisher, and I'm figuring out how to format it nicely.

At this point, if I export it then the result will be a booklet with page 1 as it's first page.
But how do people design covers?

I've found a couple of videos on YouTube showing people creating covers as separate documents.

Is it standard practice to build the cover separately? In such a way that it is never used within the same Publisher file as the actual document?

Thanks.

[thomaso]

For screen-view only there is no spine and the cover can be page 1 with last page as the back cover.

For printed media the cover has a spine and thus the entire cover spread has a different size than the content spreads. Therefore it is useful to layout the cover in a separate document and not as facing pages.

There was a feature request for the option to create spreads with more than two pages [ back | spine | title ] but according a Serif announcement some months ago there are currently no plans to implement this feature.

[Sunil Wu]

8 minutes ago, thomaso said:

For screen-view only there is no spine and the cover can be page 1 with last page as the back cover.

For printed media the cover has a spine and thus the entire cover spread has a different size than the content spreads. Therefore it is useful to layout the cover in a separate document and not as facing pages.

There was a feature request for the option to create spreads with more than two pages [ back | spine | title ] but according a Serif announcement some months ago there are currently no plans to implement this feature.

This brings more questions to mind.

How is spine width calculated?

What are the normal protocols when a work in two parts - body and cover - is sent to a printer?

 

[thomaso]

The spine depends on • the number of containing pages, • their paper thickness and • the thickness of the cover material. – Usually the print provider gives you the information for cover and spine dimensions. (Here is an example for an online spine calculator. Note, they use their specific papers and thus simply distinguish them by the paper's weight, which does not necessarily correspond with the paper's thickness which is relevant for the spine)

"protocol"? – If I understand right: you just deliver two separate PDF, one for the cover spread incl. spine (1 page) and the other for the content pages (page 1 … page x).

[firstdefence]

My sister publishes book's on Amazon and her least favourite thing is cover design, not the art of it but gauging the accuracy of the spine and the colouration, it's practically a black art lol!

Maybe these will help as well as thomaso knowledge.

KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) help file: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201113520

KDP Paperback cover creator: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201953020

KDP Hardcover creator: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GDTKFJPNQCBTMRV6

 

[Sunil Wu]

11 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

My sister publishes book's on Amazon and her least favourite thing is cover design, not the art of it but gauging the accuracy of the spine and the colouration, it's practically a black art lol!

Maybe these will help as well as thomaso knowledge.

KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) help file: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201113520

KDP Paperback cover creator: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201953020

KDP Hardcover creator: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/GDTKFJPNQCBTMRV6

 

My first impulse was to dive into Inkscape and start building the cover.
I've got Designer, but I'm a lot faster with inkscape at the moment. 
But I can't figure out how to align guides for a cover! I'd have to do actual maths in order to position them!

Thanks for the links. I'll check them out.

[firstdefence]

In any Affinity app you can use the guides "manager" Affinity Designer top menu: View > Guides... here you can accurately enter guide locations, you can enter unit location and use the percent check box to enter percentages by default a newly created guide will be located at the centre of the document (50%)
 

[firstdefence]

By example I filled in the KDP using a paperback with 100 pages...

Click on the image to see actual size.

This produced a template with all the areas you would need to be mindful of.

This should help you in designing your cover, you can use the png template image, then create your guides according to the layout.

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, Sunil Wu said:

But I can't figure out how to align guides for a cover! I'd have to do actual maths in order to position them!

The alignment of the three parts of a cover is quite simple: they are symmetrical to the horizontal centre.

|< back >|<spine>|< front >|

while back & front have equal dimensions. The example of KPD shown above appears unnecessary complex with its "margins": Usually we avoid "automatically" to place text very close to the edge, unless we explicitly want it. Thus the KPD "margins" are rather an estimated recommendation but actually individual and up to the designer. Also, the KPD margins may indicate that they don't guarantee the perfect cut and fold positions, – for the same reason why "bleed" is required to show layout parts at the edges / outside the final print result without 'flickering'. – For instance, even for text it could be layout by design to ignore a "margin":