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Blurb book specs, if not a plugin


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I just submitted the following in the Blurb forum. Any help from either Affinity or Blurb would be greatly appreciated.

 

"I'm still learning the software, but would like to use Affinity Publisher to create my next Blurb books and feel I would increase the speed at which I produce them if I can use and customize my own software. I see there are PDF specs, but a more easily translatable set (for Affinity) of specs would be incredibly helpful and at least make me feel that I'm not going down a rabbit hole at the start of the process. Any chance these specs could be made available on the Blurb site?"

 

Here are the Blurb PDF production specs for an 8x10 landscape book, though I'm not yet sure where to plug in these numbers:

Page Specifications Inches
Final, exported PDF should measure (w x h) 9.625 x 8.25
Page size / trim line (w x h) 9.5 x 8.0
Bleed (top, bottom, and outside edges) 0.125
Inset for Margins / Safe boundary (Top, Bottom, Outside Edge) 0.25
Inset for Margins / Safe boundary (Binding Edge) 0.5

 

Cover Specifications

Inches
Final, exported PDF should measure (w x h) 19.306 x 8.25
Total Page size / trim line (w x h) 19.056 x 8.0
Bleed (all edges) 0.125
Flaps (w x h, measured from trim edge to fold) none
Gutter / Spine (w x h) 0.056 x 8.25
Inset for Margins / Safe boundary (from edge of trim) 0.25

If you have Adobe® InDesign®, use our InDesign Plug-in for a much easier workflow to make high quality PDF files.

 

 

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You are going to have to use a double page spread layout, no way to keep the inside edge as an inside edge with single page.

Trim is the size of the finished page, that is what you want to start from

set the bleed at 1/8th of an inch on three sides and that gives you the Paper Size, this is what the printer will use

Margins mean keep important stuff inside here.

Cover should be a sepearte document, others will say different. But them having a separate spec means two docs more than likely.

 

All this stuff can be set in the File > New dialog. Choose Custom from the dropdown and proceed apace.

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.

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Thank you, Old Bruce!  

I've been putting off my next; Blurb book because I wanted to create a templates that would give me more flexibility than I have with their own quite decent software. I figure it would feel more like my own product if I have the parameters to create the whole thing from scratch.

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@DanM, I am working through the same process.

I setup a test project for a 7x7 softcover with wo documents as Old Bruce mentioned; cover and content. For the cover, I set up a single page and placed guides to show where the gutter/spine would be. 

Export to PDF as PAGES (not spreads) with bleed.

Upload to Blurb: Blurb has options to upload either as a single document or two. I chose two of course.

The whole thing went through Blurb's preflight checks at which point you can preview it.

I haven't requested a print as yet as I was simply working through the process to see how easy it would be.

 

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Thanks, Rob. This is really helpful info.

Wish I were a little further along in learning how everything works. Haven't used a DTP program since MS Publisher in the late 90s :-) and that was just for a few brochures.

Dan

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  • 5 months later...
  • 1 year later...

I've just submitted an 8x10" 184pp book of recipes to Blurb for printing and followed the detailed directions given on their recent help pages at Affinity Publisher PDF files

I found it pretty straightforward to do tbh despite this being my first serious use of Affinity Publisher - I found Blurb's own Bookwright software so cumbersome to use and like a throwback to the last century, not that I didn't hit a few issues with AP itself - not being able to constrain find and replace to selected text being the most puzzling aspect.

Looking forward to seeing the results of my efforts in print in a couple of weeks' time...

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  • 9 months later...
On 1/24/2021 at 7:45 AM, brantome said:

Looking forward to seeing the results of my efforts in print in a couple of weeks' time...

@brantome , How did your book turn out?

Mine is finally almost ready to send out for a proof, and I finally know my way around AP. Still a little worried that won't turn out well.

 

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