How can I creating signatures for bookbinding projects?

[AntiqueFlaneur]

I'm teaching myself bookbinding and am interested in doing layout and printing of books in Affinity Publisher. Here's what I mean by signatures.

What sort of templates/formats should I use to make my pages come our as signatures? Are there sizing constraints? 

If anyone has done this I'd appreciate your advice/feedback. 

Thanks!

[PeterFitz]

I've found the easiest way to print signatures is by printing from PDF using Acrobat's "Booklet" printing mode, and printing only the relevant page range for the signature (double-sided, of course).

If you wanted to create individual files for the signatures, I assume you could do that by printing to PDF rather than to a printer. However, I haven't actually tried that (yet). It's something I'll try next time I want to bind a book larger than A5, as my printers will only print to a maximum page size of A4.

[PeterFitz]

I've just done a quick test of the print-to-PDF method for creating signature files, and it does work, though I noticed that there appeared to be a degradation in image quality. That may just be a matter of adjusting the "print" parameters; I don't know. You do have to make sure you have the proper page size set in Acrobat's print dialogue — my first attempt gave me an A5 booklet (A4 page size), but once I set the page size to A3 it gave me the A4 booklet size I was after.

When printing the signature file double-sided, it would be necessary to tell Acrobat to flip the pages along the short edge, or else the front and back of each page will be upside-down relative to each other.

[Dee]

I'm facing this problem as well. It would be great if Publisher had the ability to prep for bookbinding projects, with the ability to customize pages-per-signature.

[Oufti]

On 3/1/2025 at 3:36 AM, Dee said:

I'm facing this problem as well. It would be great if Publisher had the ability to prep for bookbinding projects, with the ability to customize pages-per-signature.

If you use a Mac, you could try this spreadsheet. You can define the signatures size you want, and much more. It'll calculate the appropriate sequence of page numbers to paste in the print dialog:

(If you use only Excel, there is also a link to a similar yet simpler tool.)

[Dee]

Oh my goodness, I didn't realize the page range could set the order of printing. That is definitely a big help, thank you!