Punch Bound Books & Documents Artwork Preparation Guide

Why should you bother with all this?

Getting a job commercially printed requires you to prepare your artwork in a specific way. Once you understand this, it's easy to do and you'll get the results that you want. If you don't follow these simple steps, then you may end up with a job that you're not happy with.

There's quite a lot of detail. Why do we spell things out so clearly? Experience has taught us that making assumptions introduces problems. Something that seems normal and sensible to one person, is bizarre and illogical to another. So, it's best for us all to be singing from the same hymn sheet.

Is proofing the same as proof reading?

It's worth remembering that when we proof your book we just check that it is technically capable of being printed. We don't proof read it, we don't check it for factual errors, we don't check or critique the way that you've laid it out, and we don't call you for a chat if we dislike like the colours you've chosen. We're just the printers. To understand more about proofing and how the proofing process works you can read the help section:

HELP > ARTWORK > PROOFS (opens in a new window)

Is creating or editing your original artwork included in the price?

The prices you see on the web site are from your print ready PDFs. We don't design your cover for you inclusive in that price, we don't add photographs or illustrations, we don't alter layout or correct any form of mistakes you may have made. This is purely a printing service. We're very happy to do additional work for you. If this is of interest to you, please call to the helpdesk on 01452 751900 to discuss. It's worth noting that if you are having difficulty creating your cover, we do have a low cost Cover Layout Service. Please ask the helpdesk for details.

How many pages are in my book?

This can cause some confusion. A leaf is a physical sheet of paper in your book block. Each leaf comprises two pages. One on the front of the leaf, one on the back. For example: a 100 page book block has 50 leaves and 100 pages. Still confused? Visualise picking up a book. Now open the book anywhere. Look at the recto page (the right hand page) now turn the page and look at the verso page (the left hand page). They are different pages on the same leaf of paper. What about blank pages? A blank page is still a page, it's just a page that is blank.

Understand the different types of printing.

This information is a catch up for people who missed it on the product page. Skip it, if you already know this.

Why not request some samples from the helpdesk so that you can see the quality of the printing before ordering?

You can choose from:

All Colour. Full colour printing on a colour digital press. These are very high quality, heavy production presses.

A mixture of Colour and B&W. This is also printed on the same colour digital presses. If some of your pages are B&W, this is a cheaper way to print your book. We may need to convert some of your pages to "true" B&W for you, but don't worry, that's all part of the service.

All B&W. If you choose this option, your book block will be printed on a high quality Canon Titan machine. If you choose this print option, we will automatically convert your pages to B&W if required. Over the years, we have had a few people decide that they want an all black page with reversed out "white" print. If you want this, this is not the service for you. This is a book printing service. Please contact the helpdesk to discuss your options if this is the kind of thing you require. For guidance, a B&W printed book will typically have 5-30% ink coverage. If your book uses more than this, we reserve the right to decline your job.

For longer runs of books, we also offer interposed printing. This is where we split the book block between colour and B&W presses and merge them back together before they go to the bindery. Due to the extra work involved, this only makes sense where you are printing around 50 or more books, though that will obviously vary from job to job. The benefit of this service are that we can marry together ultra high speed and lower cost B&W printing with the smaller quantities of colour printing. We can also mix and match paper types. For example, you might want a lighter weight matt uncoated paper for the B&W pages and a heavier silk coated paper for the colour pages. You have to pick up the phone speak with us to get a price for this! We've found that more complex options like this require some interaction with our experienced helpdesk staff.

Tips on choosing software to create your book

If you haven't already started work on your book and are not sure what software application to use, have a read of our handy little guide for some tips:

WHAT SOFTWARE SHOULD YOU USE TO CREATE YOUR ARTWORK?

Tips on CMYK, RBG and Colour Management

For someone printing their first book, these can seem like big scary topics. Click on this link to read The Bluffers Guide to CMYK and RGB. If you're interested, have a read of our Colour Management guide.

One valid and very successful approach to this subject is to be "the blissfully ignorant" and neither know nor care about any of these details. Simply send us your (correctly formatted) artwork and the busy elves in Inky's Proofing Team will take care of making it print ready for you. Your side of the deal is make sure that you check your proof very carefully and confirm that the print ready colours look OK.

Useful terms.

Understanding some of the lingo is useful as we'll use it when an exact meaning is required. Plus it may come up in Trivial Pursuit one day.

Recto pages. In languages written from left to right, a recto page is on the right hand side when a book is open. It is printed on the "front" of a leaf.

Verso pages. In languages written from left to right, a verso page is on the left hand side when a book is open. It is printed on the "back" of a leaf.

Artwork. This is a generic term, meaning the files that you send to us to print. These are normally PDF files in the format specified in this guide. In this context, this term doesn't refer to photographs or drawings, it simply means your finished work, which may incorporate text, drawings and photographs. It does not mean the file that we send back to you to check, that is the proof.

The Proof. This is the file we send back to you to check. You always get a soft (electronic) proof and you can order an optional hard copy proof. It's really important that you check your proof before approving it. Want to know more? Proofing is a Frequently Asked Question so is broken out into a seperate answer, here:

CREATING A PDF

The Book Block. AKA Text Block or Inner Pages. The Book Block comprises all the leaves of your book, bound together as a block. So, we call it a... well you get the idea.

One or more PDF files

Unless you have made special arrangements, you should send us one or more correctly formatted PDF files. PDFs are the closest thing we have to a "stable " format. This means that what you see on your screen is the same as we see on our screens and the printed product will closely match what you see on your screen. That's not the case if you send anything else. What fonts you have installed, how you have your software configured, software versions and so on all conspire together to break your lovely artwork.

Tips on creating PDFs. It's really important that you get this bit right! You would not believe how much time and angst is wasted by not paying proper attention to this step. It's a Frequently Asked Question, so is broken out into a seperate answer, here:

HELP > ARTWORK > CREATING A PDF (opens in a new window)

Ideally, you should send us 2, 3 or 4 PDF files as follows:

• Cover. For most punch bound books the cover PDF has 1-4 pages. For instance if your job has a front cover printed both sides and a blank rear cover, there would be 2 pages in your PDF. Canadian Bound books should have 1-2 pages, i.e. if you have selected printing on the outside and inside of the cover, there should be 2 pages.
• Hot Foiling. You only send us a Hot Foiling PDF if you have ordered Hot Foiling for your cover. This PDF should have 1 page.
• Tabbed Dividers. You only send us a Tabs PDF if you have ordered Tabs With Printing. If you haven't ordered Tabs, or you have ordered Tabs with No Printing, you do not send this PDF. This PDF should comprise of 1 page for every SIDE of a tab that is being printed. For example: if you have ordered 5 Tabbed Dividers, printed on both sides, this PDF should have 10 pages.
• Book Block. This should comprise of 1 page for every page in your book block. This excludes your cover and your tabs. Remember, if you want blank pages, you must include them. We are very good printers, but sadly our skills do not extend to mind reading. You may think that it's blindingly obvious that (for example) chapters should begin on a Verso Page and that we will automagically insert blank pages for you. We do not.

We're pretty accommodating, so if you're having difficulty getting exactly this, don't worry, just have a chat with us and we can normally help. For instance, it's pretty common for people with simple documents to just have 1 PDF with all pages in it. Normally no problem, as long as we can have a chat and make sure we understand what you want to achieve. No, we will not "do something" with 500 individual JPEGS and yes, this has actually happened!

What about TIFFs or JPEGs?

These formats are not accepted for books. To be clear: the images within your PDF files can of course be TIFFs or JPEGs. We just can't accept (for example) 500 separate JPEG files as your 500 page book block. The book block needs to be supplied as a PDF, the images within the book block can be TIFFs or JPEGS.

Video tutorials.

We have several step-by-step tutorials. You may want to read the whole of this section before you watch them as they will make more sense then. Although these videos will focus on one specific DTP app to create the cover, you may still find it useful to watch the process, even if you are using a different app.

Creating a Punch Bound Book Hard Cover in Affinity Publisher. This video takes you step-by-step through creating the artwork for Punch Bound Hard Covers.

Creating a Half Canadian Bound Book Cover in Affinity Publisher. This video takes you step-by-step through creating the artwork for Half Canadian Bound Book Covers, including flaps.

VIDEO NOT YET AVAILABLE - why not nag the helpdesk & remind us to finish this?

Standard Covers

This section is only relevant to you if you have ordered a punch bound book with Standard Covers. If you have ordered something else (Hard Covers, Canadian Bound), you can safely skip this section. Creating your cover for a Standard Punch Bound book is very straightforward, as it's just the same as creating any other page of your book. Same size, same bleeds, same everything. There are two main things to remember:

Punched Area. This applies to both the covers and the book block, so you will see the same information repeated in that section. The punched holes extend around 8mm from the spine. So don't put anything here as it will get holes punched in it. We recommend at least 10mm margin from the spine, preferably a little more. Remember that the Recto side has the punched holes on the left, the Verso side has the punched holes on the right.

Oversized Covers. You can order oversized covers for your punch bound book. This option is mostly there to provide some protection for tabbed dividers, if your book has these. When you have selected the Oversized Covers option, your cover pages must be 15mm wider than the finished size you have chosen for your book. For example: if you have chosen an A4 Portrait orientation, your finished size is 297mm tall x 210mm wide, but your oversized covers will be 297x225mm. This does not include bleeds. This means that you must create a document with a custom sized page, which matches your oversized covers.

You should now have a good idea about how to create a Standard cover. Read on to How to create your inner pages (Book Block) for some more tips. You can also take a look at Templates And How to Use Them for more help and to download a template. Remember that these templates will be the wrong size if you have chosen an oversized cover.

Hard Covers

This section is only relevant to you if you have ordered a punch bound book with Hard Covers. If you have ordered something else, you can safely skip this section. These covers are a little more complex. We'll break this down into two sections: Colour Printed Covers and Material Wrapped Covers. Don't worry about getting any of this wrong, we'll let you know if anything needs changing before we create your proof.

Before we get started, it will help you to visualise how the product is made and what the end result should look like. You're welcome to ask for a sample from the helpdesk, but in the meantime, take a look at these two photos. They show the outside and inside of one hard cover before it's punched and bound.

When making a hard cover, we start with a thick, rigid board. The full colour print, or material wrap, is made separately and then applied to the outside (first picture). If you look at the inside of the cover (second picture), you can see that the full colour print wraps around the edge of the cover and onto the inside. An end paper (orange in this example) is then applied to the inside of the cover. Approximately 4mm of the colour print shows all round the edge of the end paper. In order to make a strong, neat job, quite a lot of the edge of the colour print ends up underneath the end paper.

What Size is my Cover? It's important to note that this is not the same size as your cover artwork, we're referring to the finished size of your cover here. Your cover height is the book block height PLUS 8mm. Your cover width is book block width PLUS 8mm.

Colour Printed Covers

What size should my cover ARTWORK be? In the last section we discussed what the finished size of the cover is. That's common between Colour Printed Covers and Fabric Wrapped Covers. However, the actual Cover Artwork is a different size for each one.

For Hard Cover Punch Bound Books you should create your covers separately to your book block and supply them to Inky as a separate PDF. This is because they are a different page size to the book block. The (page) size calculation for your cover is straightforward:

• Height = book block height + 48mm
• Width = book block height + 48mm

Why is the artwork so much bigger than the cover size? If you refer back to the photos above, you can see that we need the extra artwork to wrap around the edge of the cover and run underneath the end paper.

Let's talk about this part of your artwork which extends past the physical edge of your cover. As mentioned, it will wrap around the edge of the cover and quite a long way onto the inside of the cover. A good deal of it will end up underneath the end paper. At the risk of stating the blooming obvious: you should treat this area as a "filler" space and not include anything like text or graphics that you want people to see. Most people will simply extend the background colour or pattern to fill this area.

Size example: A portrait orientation A5 sized book with hard covers. The book block is A5 portrait, i.e. 210(h)x148(w)mm. The cover size is 218(h)x156(w)mm. The cover ARTWORK is 210+48 x 148+48 = 258(h)x196(w)mm.

Guidance on Creating your Cover Artwork.

1. Create a custom page size. Using your chosen DTP application or Word processor, create a custom page size that matches your cover artwork size. You'll need to figure out how to create a custom page size in the app you've chosen to use. Insert two pages, one for the front and one for the back. Note: if you have selected PRINTED End Papers, these are the same size as your book block and should be sent to us as part of the book block PDF.

2. Create some guides. Why do you need to do this step? You have several distinct areas and you want to accurately position your content. You may want content centered on your cover and you will certainly want to make sure that no content gets holes punched out of it. We can't tell you exactly how to create these guides, that depends on what software you are using.

Here's what we suggest:

• Draw guides 24mm in from all 4 edges. These denote where the edge of your finished cover will be.
• Draw a guide 34mm in from the edge nearest the spine. The spine will be on the LHS (Left Hand Side) of the front cover (the recto page) and on the RHS of the rear cover (verso). The area between this guide and the finished edge guide denotes the punched area.
• Draw guides in from the other 3 edges, i.e. those not closest to the spine. These will denote the safe zone for your content and should be between 4-6mm from the cover edge guides. For example, if you decide to use 5mm, your guides will be 29mm in from the three sides not adjacent to the spine.

That's it, your done and you can now see exactly where to put your content. If you haven't done this before, it might sound intimidating, but it's really only a couple of minutes work.

3. Lay out your artwork. Once you're finished, create a PDF (read the help section on creating PDFs if you haven't already) and you are ready to send it to print.

It might help you to see this all laid out as a diagram. Please take a look at the Templates section, where you can see all of the above guides laid out for the common cover sizes. Remember that you can't edit these templates, they are just there to help with the cover size and to visualise how to lay out your cover.

Half Canadian Covers

This section is only relevant to you if you have ordered a Half Canadian punch bound book. If you have ordered something else, you can safely skip this section.

I'm not going to lie to you, these covers are the most complex to design. Put your grown up pants on and let's get stuck in. If this has you quaking in your boots, don't despair! Let me remind you that we offer an expert cover layout service at a very reasonable price. Call our friendly helpdesk to get the ball rolling.

Still here? Okey dokey, but just remember that from this point on, I'm not mollycoddling anyone, so keep up!

What size should my cover ARTWORK be? This is fairly complicated to work out, but the lovely team at Inky has you covered. Our online price calculator automagically calculates the cover artwork size for you. However, nothing in life is quite that simple. Half Canadians need finessing. The books that is, I'm not sure about actual Canadians. There is a relationship between the physical size of the wires available, the book block caliper (combined thickness) and the overall cover size which means that calculating the size down to that last mm is not feasible. So, if I'm designing a Half Canadian, I use the cover size calculator as a guide, print and bind one, and then tweak the design based on the results to get a perfect result. The good news is that you can do exactly same by adding a hard copy proof to your order. Does this mean that you can never order this type of book without a hard copy proof? No, it's not 100% necessary, but is highly recommended. If your cover artwork doesn't rely on being in exactly the right place and can still look good, then you can get away with no hard copy proof. Your choice. See, no mollycoddling.

Guidance on Creating your Cover Artwork.

1. Create a custom page size. Using your chosen DTP application, create a custom page size that matches your cover artwork size. You'll need to figure out how to create a custom page size in the app you've chosen to use. If you've ordered printing only on the outside of the cover, insert one page. If you've ordered printing both sides, insert 2 pages. Unless your artwork is very simple and has a clear white border all around the edges, you will need to add bleeds. We recommend 4mm bleeds for this type of book. If you want a refresher on what bleeds are and why you need them, have a gander here:

BLEEDS

2. Create some guides. Why do you need to do this step? You have several distinct areas and you will want to accurately position your content. You may want content centered on your cover, positioned on your flaps to miss the folds, and you will certainly want to make sure that no content gets holes punched out of it. We can't tell you exactly how to create these guides, that depends on what software you are using. Don't forget: if you make a complete hash of this, it's no big deal. When we proof your job back to you, the proof will clearly show you where these areas are. You can correct any problems then before we print your whole job. One final thing to check is that your guides are not printable. We don't want them in the artwork that you send us!

Here's what we suggest:

1. Start with the outside of the cover (page 1). The inside of the cover (page 2) will be the same, except the positions of the guides are reversed.
2. Flaps (if you have them). Insert guides to show where the fold line for the flap or flaps are. This is straightforward: place your guides the same distance from the edge of the page as the width of the flap. You've either been given the standard flap width in your quote specification, or you've negotiated a custom flap width with the helpdesk. If you've only ordered one flap, remember to reverse it's position on the inside of the cover (page 2). When viewing the outside of the cover (page 1) the leftmost guide shows you the edge (fold) of the rear flap and the rightmost guide shows you the edge (fold) of the front flap. This is reversed when you are viewing the inside of the cover (page 2).
3. Spine. Insert guides to show where the the spine is. Your quote specification will give you the width of the cover including and excluding flaps. If you haven't ordered flaps, you'll only get one cover width, which is "excluding flaps". Divide the cover width excluding flaps by 2. This is the distance from the left to insert the left hand spine guide. Depending on whether or not you have ordered a rear flap, this position is relative to either the left side of the cover, OR from the leftmost (i.e. rear) flap guide. Next insert another guide the width of the printable spine to the right of the first spine guide. You now have guides which show you where the spine is.
4. Punched Area. Insert a guide to show the location of the punched area. This area contains punched holes and binding wire threaded through the cover. Insert a guide 24mm to the LEFT of the leftmost spine guide. The Punched Area is the area between this guide and the leftmost spine guide. Remember to reverse this for the inside of the cover (page 2).

This is pretty straightforward, but just to be on the safe side: let's do a worked example. For this example, Inky's spec has given you the following information:

The overall size of your cover INCLUDING flaps will be approximately 210mm high by 428mm wide.
You have selected both front and back cover flaps. Each flap is 60mm wide. These are included in the overall width given above.
The width of your cover EXCLUDING flaps is 308mm.
Your printable spine is approximately 8mm wide.

1. In my DTP app of choice, I create a custom page size of 210mm x 428mm. Bleeds are set to 4mm. I've ordered a cover printed both sides, so I insert 2 pages.
2. Flap Guides, page 1. Guide 1 is 60mm from the left of page. Guide 2 is 60mm from right of page. Most DTP software will set guides relative to a Zero Point (ZP). My DTP ZP is set to the default (top left), so the rightmost guide is actually inserted 368mm to the right of the ZP (428 - 60 = 368mm). From now on, I'm going to give all examples as relative to the ZP as that's most likely how you will enter them in your DTP app.
3. Spine Guides, page 1. The width of my cover excluding flaps is 308mm. 308 / 2 = 154, so Guide 3 is 154mm to the right of Guide 1. Guide 1 is at 60mm, so 60 + 154 = 214mm. Guide 3 is inserted 214mm to the right of the ZP. Guide 4 is 8mm to the right of Guide 3. 214 + 8 = 222mm. Guide 4 is inserted 222mm to the right of the ZP.
4. Punched Area Guides, page 1. Guide 5 is 24mm to the left of Guide 3. 212 - 24 = 188mm. Guide 5 is inserted 188mm to the right of the ZP.
5. Flap Guides, page 2. Guide 1 is 60mm from the ZP. Guide 2 is 368mm from the ZP. Note that in this example, we have front and rear cover flaps so these guides are the same as on page 1. If we only had one flap, it's position would be reversed when viewed from the inside (page 2).
6. Spine Guides, page 2. 308 / 2 = 152, so Guide 3 is 152mm to the right of Guide 1. 152 + 60 = 212mm. Guide 3 is inserted 212mm to the right of the ZP. Guide 4 is 8mm to the right of Guide 3. 212 + 8 = 220mm. Guide 4 is inserted 220mm to the right of the ZP.
7. Punched Area Guides, page 2. Remember that the position of the punched are is reversed when viewed from the inside of the cover. Guide 5 is 24mm to the right of Guide 4. 220 + 24 = 244mm. Guide 5 is 244mm to the right of the ZP.

Armed with this knowledge, you may want to view one of the video tutorials and see this put into action.

3. Lay out your artwork. Once you're finished, create a PDF (read the help section on creating PDFs if you haven't already) and you are ready to send it to print.

What is hot foiling?

Hot foil is a thin film that can be applied to paper, card, fabric and many other materials. In fact, the "metal" controls in your car are usually a hard plastic covered with a hot foil. When printing book covers, hot foil can be used for some very pleasing effects. For example: your book title in a high gloss metallic colour.

Very simple hot foiling

Some people will have simple requirements for hot foiling, for example a line of text for the title and a line of text for the author name. In this instance, it is sufficient to supply the text at the correct size and font in your PDF and give us instructions via the helpdesk on where you wish to place it. A simple message along the lines of "Please centre these two lines on the front cover" will suffice. We're even happy to add Title and Author for you at no charge. Just give us the text, preferred font, sizes & position. We're nice like that.

Everything else

You should provide the artwork for the areas to be hot foiled as one page in it's own PDF file. Make the page size the same as your cover artwork. This allows us to exactly position your hot foiling where you want it to be. If you can't supply your foiling artwork like this, please call the helpdesk and we'll figure a way around it.

All of your artwork for hot foiling MUST SIMPLY BE IN BLACK. Do not send a mixture of colours, you will not like the results! Text and simple graphics work best with hot foiling. If you wish to print a graphic on your cover, keep it simple and solid black. Do not use tints (a percentage of black), they do not translate well to hot foiling.

Important note. If you have ordered a printed cover and hot foiling, DO NOT attempt to mix your full colour cover artwork and your hot foil artwork on the SAME PAGE. That simply will not work.

General information about foils

We stock an extensive range of high quality foils manufactured by Kurz.

We display a "descriptive" name for each foil colour, i.e. Cloud Grey. Foil manufacturers do not give a descriptive names, just numbers! So these descriptive names have been made up by us at Inky in order to help you differentiate between shades when you are ordering. After each name we give a reference in brackets, for instance L362. This gives the manufacturer's reference, in this case Luxor 362. You should ask for a foil swatch sample, especially if the exact colour of the foil is important to you.

If you have access to a Kurz swatch book, you can look the colours up yourself using the reference number in brackets. L stands for Luxor, C stands for Colorit, AF stands for Alufin.

You can select one foil colour using the instant online quotation. This is just to keep the instant quote generator as simple as possible. If your design requires multiple colours, we can foil as many different colours as you want. However you'll need to speak with the heldesk to get a quotation for multi-coloured hot foiling.

Clear gloss foil imparts no colour to the print, but it is often applied on top of a printed area, giving a highlighted, textured affect. It also looks fantastic with no print below and using a deep impression.

Pearl foil is translucent. If applied on top of a printed area, you can see the printing underneath, but the colour is changed with a the pearlescent lustre.

Matt foils are exactly that. They can look very much like traditional letterpress or lithographic inks. The main difference is that foils are completely opaque. This is a great advantage as it means you can print light colours onto dark coloured card. The foiled area will show bright and true, whereas the colour of inks will vary according to the colour of the card that they are printed onto.

Gloss foils have a high gloss shine.

We also usually carry dull gloss gold and silver foils. If you would like this type of finish for your project, please contact the helpdesk to discuss.

We can apply one foil colour on top of another. This does not behave the same as inks: if you print a red dot on top of a white area, you don't get a pink dot, you get a red dot as the foils are opaque. The only exceptions to this are where we note that the foil is translucent or clear.

Please bear in mind that hot foiling is not the same process as printing and what is achievable is different. For example, you cannot create a half tone screen with foiling. Please read the artwork preparation guide for more information.

In some circumstances, we can special order colours that we don't normally stock. Please contact the helpdesk if you'd like to discuss this.

There may be slight colour differences between different batches manufactured.

Book Block Artwork File

Your Book Block artwork should be sent to us as one PDF (your cover artwork is in a seperate PDF, see that section for details).

Page layout

Seperate pages. Your PDF should contain seperate pages, NO SPREADS of any kind. Just the pages, in the right order, one at a time. If you need a refresher on what a spread is, have a read of the What is a Spread? Help topic.

Page order. We're not trying to insult your intelligence, but this issue has come up a few times now and has caused problems. When you open a book, page one of your book is on the recto (right hand) side facing you. It is not printed a page or two in, it is not printed on the back of the cover. If you want your book to start printing on a verso (left hand) page, you need to insert a blank page. That blank page will be "page one" of your book and should be the first page in your book block PDF. If you want to start your own page numbering from the inside of the front cover, that's completely up to you. Just understand that's the inside of the cover when creating your artwork.

Page sizes. The page size should be the size that you have chosen for your book, for example an A5 book will be 210mm x 148mm. If your pages are BLED, then you need to add 2mm bleeds all round. If you do not understand what a bleed area is and what it is used for, there is an explanation here:

BLEEDS

Page Layout - EASY version. We recommend that you use Margins to ensure that nothing essential is punched out of your artwork and nothing is too close to the edge. We recommend using a minimum of 18mm margin on all edges of your page. If all of your pages have nothing in the margin area, that's it, your done. Otherwise you will need to figure out whether you need to add Bleeds.

Page Layout - ADVANCED version. If you want a bit more control over your layout, this is for you, otherwise you can safely skip this subsection. This is where using the Templates and understanding Recto and Verso pages will come in handy.

For advanced page layout, we don't use margins. Instead there are multiple areas you need to understand: HELP > ARTWORK >Safe Zone, Punched area, Bleed area, Trim area. A picture is worth a thousand words, so these are all shown in the templates. The objective is to make your artwork look good with no bits cut off or punched out!

By now, you should understand why you set up a bleed area and what to put in it. If you need bleeds, we recommend a minimum of 2mm. The trim area shows you where the guillotine will cut and is usually just the edge of the page in your DTP or Word Processor (WP) app. The Safe Zone essentially replaces your margins and, again, you should know what this is by now. In a WP, we'd recommend just using Margins to denote the Safe Zone and Guides in a DTP. The Punched area shows you where the binding holes will be and you should use a Guide to show this. All very quick and easy to set up in your DTP or WP. The only wrinkle is that the Punched area and Safe Zone will be on the left hand side (LHS) on a recto page and the RHS on a verso page. In other words they are on the spine side of the page. We show you how to do this in LibreOffice in the tutorial above, you will need to figure this out in the app you are using. If you get stuck, call the friendly helpdesk and pick our brains.

Even if you are not using LibreOffice, it might be worth taking a look at the video tutorial as the basic ideas are similar for all apps.

Remember: these are general guidelines. Many designers completely ignore them because their specific requirements are different, for example printing notes in the margin area is often used with text books. A good common sense rule is: if in doubt, print a proof copy and then make your necessary changes after examining that.

Page numbering. It may seem obvious, but we recommend that you always number your pages. There a few different ways to do this, i.e. numbering prefaces and appendices seperately and these are all fine. Be consistent in where you put your numbers. If you want numbers on the outside of each page and your book is in a left to right written language, remember that on right hand ("front" or recto) pages the number should be on the right hand side. On left hand ("back" or verso) pages, the number should be on the left hand side. Desk Top Publishing software (DTP) normally has tools to help you with much of this, but word processing software may not. The easy alternative is just to put your numbers in the middle!

Blank pages. We do not insert blank pages! You may think that it is just common sense that chapters should start on a recto page and this will automagically happen, but it doesn't. If the previous chapter ends on a recto page and you want the next chapter to also start on a recto page, insert a blank verso page before the new chapter. We print exactly what you send us, so if you want a blank page, insert a blank page. Blank pages count toward your black and white page count.

Typography. Typography primarily covers the font type, style, size and position of the text used in your book. Consideration should also be given to the line spacing, margins, page numbering and more. This is really beyond the scope of this guide, but there are several good books on the subject and some useful information can be found online. Here are a couple of general pointers that may be of some help:

• Text will generally look better if it is justified, i.e. with the words spaced so that lines have straight and even margins.
• Don't make the font sizes too small. It's difficult to give you a firm "use 12 point" rule, as each font will vary. In general, anything under 10pt in any font is likely to be too small. Print out a page in the font & size you are thinking of using, take a good look at it and then show it to other people. Take a trip to the bookshop and look at a few books. Does your font look smaller than is generally used?
• Use a small number of fonts and use them consistently. We've seen some very ugly books that have used a jumble of different fonts. Keep it simple and use fonts for specific purposes. For example; one font for your text, one font for headings, one font for illustration titles. Three fonts should be plenty for most books, but some reference books will need more.

Simple Tabs

If you just want B&W text on white Tabs, this section is for you. The first important rule is: Be realistic about what will fit. Tabs are small, text only please and remember to be concise, there isn't much room to print on a Tab!

Our preference is for you to send simple Tab text to the helpdesk in an email.

Please mention your order number in the email subject. In the email body please give us the wording to be used on the Tabs and the corresponding PDF page numbers where you want the Tabs to be inserted AFTER. For example:

P2 AGENDA
P4 Topic 1
P8 Topic 2
Etc.

Page numbers refer to the pages in your PDF. You may have some other numbering convention, but if there are 80 pages in your book block (the inner pages) amd you ask us to insert a tab after page 10, it will be inserted after the 10th page of your PDF. At the risk of stating the obvious, you can only place your tab after an even numbered page.

That's it!

Custom Tabs

If you want Custom Printed Tabbed Dividers, you need to supply us with the actual artwork. Don't panic, it's pretty straightforward!

If you'd prefer us to lay out your Custom Printed Tabbed Dividers for you, we do offer this service at an extra cost. This is not a Graphic Design service, you will need to supply us with any necessary artwork components and we'll lay them all out accurately for you. Call the helpdesk for a chat about this and an estimate on price.

You need to supply your artwork for your Tabbed Dividers as a seperate PDF file. One page for each Tabbed Divider or two if the Tabbed Divider is printed on both sides.

You still need to send the helpdesk a covering email with your instructions about where to insert the Tabbed Dividers. Otherwise we have to rely on our sense of intuition. Please mention your order number in the email subject. Example instructions: "Insert Tab 1 after Page 2, Tab 2 after Page 4, Tab 3 after Page 8" and so on. Page numbers refer to the pages in your PDF. You may have some other numbering convention, but if there are 80 pages in your book block (the inner pages) amd you ask us to insert a tab after page 10, it will be inserted after the 10th page of your PDF. At the risk of stating the obvious, you can only place your tab after an even numbered page.

You will need to set up a custom page size in your DTP App. Our Tabs extend 12mm from the edge of the book block. This means that your Tabbed Divider page size needs to be 12mm wider than the Book Block (inner pages) size. So, if you've ordered an A5 Punch Bound Book, your page size for your Tabbed Dividers will still be 210mm high, but it will be 160mm wide (148mm + 12mm). If your Tabbed Divider artwork requires bleeds, we recommend 2mm. If you want a refresher on what bleeds are and why you need them, have a gander here:

HELP > ARTWORK > BLEEDS

After setting the custom page size, most of the rest of the guidelines are pretty much the same as for any other Book Block page. You need to set up a Safe Zone and you need to be aware of where the punched area is. Otherwise your artwork will end up with holes in it. If you need a reminder of what a Safe Zone is and why they are a good idea, have a read here:

HELP > ARTWORK > SAFE ZONES

The remaining thing to consider and set up are your actual Tabs. This is pretty straightforward, but does require a little work.

Let's use the example of a book with 5 Tabbed Dividers. We'll stick with A5 for this example. The Tab part will be approximately 42mm (210 / 5). For the recto pages (i.e. the front size of the Tabbed Divider), all of the Tabs will start 210mm from the left of the Tabbed Divider page. Tab 1 will start at the top of the page (0mm from top) and carry on for 42mm. Tab 2 start 42mm from the top of the page and carry on for another 42mm. Tab 3 will start 84mm from the top, and so on. We'd recommend setting up some simple guides to help you position the Tab content. For the verso pages, this is reversed as of course the tabs are positioned on the left hand side (i.e. 0mm from the left hand side).

A few more things to remember. Keep realistic expectations about what will be visible on the relatively small Tab. Don't try to print text right up to the edge, that will look awful. Observe as much of a margin on your Tab as possible. And - at the risk of stating the obvious - rotate your text or graphics to the appropriate orientation. We suggest that you view the "Top" of your Tab as the one closest to the spine.