InDesign magazine page setup

It's best to ask your printer about it.

There were times I had to make the front and back cover on a different file because of the fold in the middle, you need a large sheet to fold a 50 page magazine.

ibizarocks said:

Hey guys, this is a really stupid question but I've never had to do one before so I don't exactly know the answer.

I'm doing a magazine for work but I'm struggling to work out how to have the pages set up.

To me when I look at the pages in my page palette all I see is what would be page 1 back cover and page 2 front cover but with pages 3 and 4 would these then be the inside of the front and back covers or an extra sheet in the magazine?

Please help me, finding this very confusing!!

Click to expand...

You can design the thing as regular spreads as you would imagine them looking as you flip through the magazine. Then when it's all done and just before sending to the printer, rearrange the pages into printer spreads (unless the printer offers to do it for you)

To be more clear, you can start with:

back + front cover spread
Inside front cover + page 1 spread
page 2 + page 3 spread
etc. etc.

It's much easier to design for how you want them to look as a spread and rearrange them later.

decksnap said:

It's much easier to design for how you want them to look as a spread and rearrange them later.

Click to expand...

This is very true. Remember, however, to make your spread out of two single pages placed side by side, not a single page the size of the whole spread.

I'd be inclined to save a PDF or EPS file of each individual page, and then have a separate file with the print layout and place the EPSs as necessary to match the printers' pairs, or however it needs laying up.

Cheers!

Jim

Hello, I work in the prepress department of a medium sized commercial printer...

If you're doing a saddlestitch book (bound with staples in the middle), 16 pages including cover, your layout would look like this:



Page 1 = OFC (outside front cover)
Page 2 = IFC (inside front cover)
Page 15 = IBC (inside back cover)
Page 16 = OBC (outside back cover)



If you have a cover where there's a spread that wraps around from the back to the front, then make a your document 17 pages. Leave page 1 blank.
Start with page 2 as the OBC, and page 3 as the OFC. Page 4 is your IBC, and so forth. Page 17 then would be your IBC.

Build the pages in the order that you READ them (called "Reader's spreads.)
Also make sure that the number of pages is a multiple of 4. You could actually do a magazine of just 6 pages, but it would be a horizontal folding thing, not a stitched magazine.

Also PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE check your separations using the "Separations Preview" palette. You can find it in Window-->Output-->Separations Preview. This is doubly important if you're doing Black only or Black + a Spot color, as it's a big headache to fix customer files that have their "Spot Color" setup erroneously as a process or RGB. Or they setup their "Black" type as registration color instead of Black.

Anyways just some tips

Edit: If you're looking for some good templates for booklets, magazines, etc. Check out this website, which has some downloadable premade Indesign templates:

http://www.48hourprint.com/indesign-templates.html

They are one of my competitors, but I have to admit they have a good website

decksnap said:

You can design the thing as regular spreads as you would imagine them looking as you flip through the magazine. Then when it's all done and just before sending to the printer, rearrange the pages into printer spreads (unless the printer offers to do it for you)

To be more clear, you can start with:

back + front cover spread
Inside front cover + page 1 spread
page 2 + page 3 spread
etc. etc.

It's much easier to design for how you want them to look as a spread and rearrange them later.

Click to expand...

If you are re-arranging pages, just remember to NOT automatically number the pages via the Master Pages. Instead do it manually on eachpage ... otherwise when you re-arrange the pages all the page numbers will change to reflect their new positions!

Don't reorder the pages into printer's spreads! You'd just be doing more work for yourself that most likely your printer will have to un-do.

Most if not all modern printers use imposition software (Kodak's "Preps") that does this for us. We feed the pages into the workflow sequentially and the imposition software will put them into the correct imposition for folding.

Do a google search for "Kodak Preps" to read about it or even do a Youtube search if you want to see some vids on how it works.

Buzz Bumble said:

Instead do it manually on eachpage ... otherwise when you re-arrange the pages all the page numbers will change to reflect their new positions!

Click to expand...

Unless -- as I suggested -- you have a separate file for the print layout with a placed EPS or PDF of each single page in the spread, which is one of the reasons why I suggested it.

As Mariusz1977 notes, however, a press that is set up for doing a lot of magazine work will most likely have imposition software that will do the job for you. A smaller operation, or one that does relatively little magazine work will probably want printers' pairs, unless the magazine is perfect bound rather than saddle-stitched, in which case leave the imposition the hell alone and make them do it!

Edit to add: ... So it's always best to check with the printers. You need to do this anyway to find out what their preferred Bleed and particularly Safe Type areas are (the Safe Type, aka Live, area can vary spectacularly between different printers). I've worked with some printers who want particular file types used for placed images, as well, so always, always, speak to your press!

Cheers

Jim