Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Publisher: How to create a trifold brochure?


Recommended Posts

Hi there!

Can somebody please explain, how to set the page layout for a trifold brochure (flyer)?

Essentially, it is an A4 landscape format, that is going to be folded in two directions, so it's three pages per side. In InDesign I would create 6 pages with 99 by 210 mm and then drag the pages to form spreads with three pages each, like you can see in the screenshot. Is this possible in Affinity Publisher somehow? Or how would you set the page layout for a flyer like this?

Many thanks for your help!

Bildschirmfoto 2018-11-20 um 12.45.55.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For the time being you are going to have to use only guides for this, one divided by two guides. Two page spread is the maximum for the foreseeable future.

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Would the total width of the document with 3 columns not suffice?

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
B| (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum)

Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

For the time being you are going to have to use only guides for this, one divided by two guides. Two page spread is the maximum for the foreseeable future.

Oh, well… thanks anyway!  

20 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Would the total width of the document with 3 columns not suffice?

It has to be suffice, as it seems. :) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Would the total width of the document with 3 columns not suffice?

I am probably missing something obvious, but since this document is going to be printed to a single sheet anyway, what is the benefit of creating it with multiple pages that have to be aligned to properly cover the sheet?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I am probably missing something obvious, but since this document is going to be printed to a single sheet anyway, what is the benefit of creating it with multiple pages that have to be aligned to properly cover the sheet?

There is not so much benefit, to be honest. Just little things, like you get correct crop and folding marks in the PDF print file. And you can "navigate" the pages individually. Double click on one page centers and scales the view for that page automatically (in InDesign). Let's say, it is just a matter of "cleaner work". ;) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are there automatic folding marks in Indy? I have always made manually.. (as you do in Affinity BTW).

And, often foldable "pages" have to be of different width, so that folding/opening happens easily. There is difference in tri-fold and z-fold...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Fixx said:

Are there automatic folding marks in Indy? I have always made manually.. (as you do in Affinity BTW).

And, often foldable "pages" have to be of different width, so that folding/opening happens easily. There is difference in tri-fold and z-fold...

It‘s not exactly folding marks. But when you do the page layout like in the ID-Screenshot and export a PDF with crop marks, then you will also get these marks on the upper and lower side where the pages fold.

You can also edit the individual page sizes, so that (when tri-folding) the infolded page can be set a little less wide.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Going back to the original question why would there be a spread limit of two pages in a spread? Affinity do realise this is Publishing Software right? so why the restriction when it's blatantly obvious people will be making a multitude of documents styles, it just seems like a restriction for the sake of it.  

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
B| (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum)

Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Going back to the original question why would there be a spread limit of two pages in a spread? Affinity do realise this is Publishing Software right? so why the restriction when it's blatantly obvious people will be making a multitude of documents styles, it just seems like a restriction for the sake of it.  

When would a greater than 2 page spread offer any real advantages over using a larger page size & columns or artboards; & what would they be?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, R C-R said:

When would a greater than 2 page spread offer any real advantages over using a larger page size & columns or artboards; & what would they be?

Yes, flexible and or familiar workflows, focused editing, accurate page sizes, the ability to make something more than by adding pages and creating concertina documents and probably several other options but the point is why restrict a user when there is no need to, I doubt there is a publishing app out there that restricts the user to a 2 spread option, it makes no logical sense whatsoever to apply a totally unnecessary limitation and restrict the abilities of what is, I assume, a professional desktop publishing app. 

By all means feel free to give me a reason why this would be so.

 

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
B| (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum)

Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, firstdefence said:

I doubt there is a publishing app out there that restricts the user to a 2 spread option

AFAI remember FrameMaker.

☛ 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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, firstdefence said:

By all means feel free to give me a reason why this would be so.

I was just curious about why it is so important not to limit spreads to 2 pages. I have no idea why Affinity Publisher sets that limit, other than maybe because it is still a beta of version what will eventually become the first retail version of the app, & sometime later in the development cycle that limit will be removed.

But that is just a guess.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

39 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I was just curious about why it is so important not to limit spreads to 2 pages. I have no idea why Affinity Publisher sets that limit, other than maybe because it is still a beta of version what will eventually become the first retail version of the app, & sometime later in the development cycle that limit will be removed.

But that is just a guess.

It just baffles me, when the potential for creative use is stifled, yes there are workarounds but why have workarounds when you can have very doable features that cannot help but sell Affinity Publisher. After a bit of thought, I wonder if it's the path of least resistance and that by bringing in more than 2 pages to a spread, this has ancillary work that is more complex than a simple book spread so its easier to get the app up and running and then work on the additional features such as tri-fold spreads and more when publisher has generated some revenue. 

I'm not a coder so I have no idea of the ramifications of adding such features, as an end user and as it is, it kind of baffles me. o.O

I think its a case of watch this space, hopefully now they have "holistic code" < made up phrase but it sounds cool lol! things should start to move a little quicker with updates and fixes, well that's my perception.

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
B| (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum)

Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, firstdefence said:

...I doubt there is a publishing app out there that restricts the user to a 2 spread option, it makes no logical sense whatsoever... 

Also a limitation of QXP, Viva Designer Pro, and the non-alive Ventura Publisher.

Using pages that can stack side-by-side for a folded, two-sided brochure I could care less about. For those doing book covers early in the project, being able to do so is quicker when the inevitable changes occur to any/all of the parts that make up a cover. 

These "panel" widths are easy enough to alter on single-page documents as long as the vertical guides one has to use can accept math. This process does take more time, but it only takes perhaps 3-5 minutes to make the alterations.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I have posted a similar query a few days ago but cannot find it or any responses.

Trouble is that those of us who used 'DrawPlus' for years for trifold flyers had at our disposal an automatic trifold creation tool. Simply click on that type of document, amongst many other - two fold, four fold, multipage folded booklets, etc. - and each page could be created after which DrawPlus printed (chose to print on both sides of the paper) out a perfect trifold document on A4 paper. Or create a .pdf version and send the file to a printer for printing of large numbers.

I created trifolds for a couple of charities for many years using DrawPlus and still do but it is a real complication with Designer of Publisher

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, Longtimer said:

I have posted a similar query a few days ago but cannot find it or any responses.

This one?

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
On 11/20/2018 at 11:10 PM, R C-R said:

When would a greater than 2 page spread offer any real advantages over using a larger page size & columns or artboards; & what would they be?

When I'm sending the document to a print partner and their impostion software/workflow requires single pages so that they can adjust for bulking between the inner and outer gatefold? Artworking across three single pages means bleeds are present across each page and the page folding in can be set to a width appropriate for the weight of paper/board...

Plus if a client wants a page extracted to be printed individually - say a dealer list, this can be as simple as PDF'ing the relevant page - it doesn't then require reartworking/cut'n'pasting or increase the margin for error :)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.