Master Pages problem when changing facing pages order

[Luis Sopelana]

Hello, first time poster, and also first time doing anything in desktop publishing software, so please excuse me if this is expected behavior. Also, I did a quick search on the forums but couldn't find anything related.

I created a document using the parameters on image 1, which yielded the results on image 2: odd pages on the right, even pages on the left side of my master pages.
I opened the Document Setup dialog, and changed "Start on:" to Left. So, odd pages are still on the right side of the Master, and even ones on the left, but it looks weird since I expected the spreads to match the Master spread. Did I miss something? Again, is this standard behavior (as in: I should have decided what my facing pages layout was in the first place) that I'm not aware of? Just to be sure, I reproduced it but with the sides flipped (images 4 through 6) and the same thing happens.

Thanks for your time, I hope I was clear and not off topic. I recently bought Designer and I'm loving it (although there's a feature that I'd like to see in the future for my job purposes, but that's a topic for its own forum) and I'm hoping to use Publisher in the near future.

Edited March 25, 2019 by Luis Sopelana
Clearer topic header

[Luis Sopelana]

Forgot to add that I'm using version 1.7.0.257, on macOS 10.14.2

[Michael117]

Hi, Luis,

First off, can you tell me a little more why you are starting on the left page and what you are trying to accomplish?  The Document Setup dialog controls the overall document settings.  There is another dialog that you use to control the spreads, the pages in the document.  The third item you need to do is to apply the master pages to the pages in the document. Right click on the page in the Pages section of the Pages studio and then select Apply Master... to use the Master page layout on the body page.  

Hope this helps.

[Luis Sopelana]

Thank you, Michael. Reapplying Master to the pages did the job just fine.

To answer your first question, I'll try to be brief with the thing I'm actually trying to do: it's a four page pamphlet, each page 5.5 x 8.5 inches. That makes each spread letter-sized in landscape mode. It's supposed to be something anyone could theoretically print in their own home or office (as opposed to sending it to a professional offset printer), and fold it in half.

The ideal would be, I guess, for me to render two different pdf files: one with the "print-it-yourself" spreads, which would be pages 4 (left) and 1 (right) on one side of the sheet, and pages 2 (left) and 3 (right) on the other side, making it a two-page, 11 x 8.5 pdf document, and the other pdf file would be a page-by-page (four 5.5x8.5in pages in the document) which would be sent for content revisions.

Hopefully I was clear enough! Thanks again.

[A_B_C]

Technically, the process of distributing pages to the printer’s sheet is called “imposition:”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imposition

So what you are after is basically a very simple form of imposition. There is an option in Affinity Publisher that allows you to print books and brochures on a home printer, which is basically another application of an imposition method. You could achieve your objective by “printing” your four-page document to PDF, using the print dialogue of Publisher and the option Model: Book or Booklet. As long as your PDF is intended for being printed on a home printer, that should be okay. 

Alex

Imposition-4.afpub

Imposition-4-Printed-to-PDF.pdf

 

[Luis Sopelana]

Ah, that's great to know. Thanks for the example files, too!

[A_B_C]

You’re welcome …