Centering objects on page (Affinity Publisher 2.6.2)

[Cedar]

I am hoping there is an automated way to center an object on a page. Well, I know there is >>> Alignment feature. But here is my problem:

IngramSpark requires ALL spreads for book covers to be submitted on 15" X 12" spreads, regardless of the trim size and spine width.

The book I am creating a book cover for has a 6 X 9 inch trim size and 0.153 spine width. When I enter all the dimensions, Affinity Publisher forces the sum of the page widths to equal the width of the spread (15").

But, ignoring bleeds, 6 + 0.153 + 6 = 12.153 which Affinity Publisher will not accept on a 15" wide spread without distorting the page widths...unless there is a feature I can turn off that I do not know about.

Is there a way that allows me to build pages onto a spread if the cumulative page width of my multi-page spread is less than the spread width (without distorting my page widths)?

[NathanC]

Hi @Cedar apologies for the late response,

I may be misinterpreting what you're trying to achieve, but might this work with a 15x12" non-facing page spread for the book cover, and then use the Guides Manager (Window -> Guides) to insert four vertical guides on the left margin, spine start, spine end and right margin, similar to what I've done in the attached file. This creates the 6" wide areas for the front and back covers to be positioned on, as well as the 0.153" spine. Although, I'm aware this would still leaves areas which would not automatically be trimmed.

On 4/24/2025 at 11:07 PM, Cedar said:

IngramSpark requires ALL spreads for book covers to be submitted on 15" X 12" spreads, regardless of the trim size and spine width.

I may not have been looking in the correct places, but I couldn't find any reference to this cover requirement on IngramSpark's website or their file creation guide. Could you therefore not create a single page with the desired 12.153" width to design the cover on?

Guides.afpub

[Cedar]

6 hours ago, NathanC said:

I may not have been looking in the correct places, but I couldn't find any reference to this cover requirement on IngramSpark's website or their file creation guide. Could you therefore not create a single page with the desired 12.153" width to design the cover on?

Guides.afpub 10.94 kB · 0 downloads

Thank you for your reply @NathanC The IngramSpark templates they supply and want us to use are 15 X 12, regardless of trim size. They have a template calculator that spits out all templates on 15 X 12 spreads. I think the requirement to use these templates has to do with their processes.

[Cedar]

6 hours ago, NathanC said:

...might this work with a 15x12" non-facing page spread for the book cover, and then use the Guides Manager (Window -> Guides) to insert four vertical guides on the left margin, spine start, spine end and right margin, similar to what I've done in the attached file. This creates the 6" wide areas for the front and back covers to be positioned on, as well as the 0.153" spine. Although, I'm aware this would still leaves areas which would not automatically be trimmed.

Guides.afpub 10.94 kB · 0 downloads

The 'Alignment' feature does not align to guides. It does not align (center, left, right) objects within that 6 inch wide guides boundary like it does to the 'page' or 'spread'. There are ways to try to 'align center' between guides, but on busy pages they can be tedious resulting in inaccuracies. I am not stopped in my work; I am just that saying not forcing the page widths to total the spread width would be helpful.

[Cedar]

6 hours ago, NathanC said:

I may not have been looking in the correct places, but I couldn't find any reference to this cover requirement on IngramSpark's website or their file creation guide. Could you therefore not create a single page with the desired 12.153" width to design the cover on?

Guides.afpub 10.94 kB · 0 downloads

See Document Size under Template Instructions. template-Ingram-creme.pdftemplate-Ingram-creme.pdf

[Oufti]

9 hours ago, NathanC said:

Could you therefore not create a single page with the desired 12.153" width to design the cover on?

If I read well the instructions, I would create such a file to this exact total size + bleed, export it to PDF and place this PDF on the 12×15 template, with Mediabox chosen in the contextual toolbar to include bleed.