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• • September 29, 2011 at 1:52 pm #60636
    RoManuV

    Member

    Hello, I need to produce a book that will be printed in perfect bound. I'll design a “Cover” document, for the cover1+spine+cover4, and a book including several “Content” documents with facing pages; when exporting to PDF I'll separate into single pages.

    My questions are:

    1. Do I have to include the cover in the book, or do I have to provide it as a separate PDF to the printing company?

    2. The cover2 and cover3 are pages of the “Cover” document or shall I include them in the “Content”?

    3. For the content pages – do I need to set an inside bleed margin? I already realized saddle-stitched magazines and they did non need it, what about perfect bound books?

    Thank you for your support.

  • September 30, 2011 at 9:15 am #60651
    Coreen Montagna

    Member

    I can only answer from my experience with my publishers and printers:

    1) The interior file and the exterior wrap cover are two separate files. You will send the printer an interior file with pages that are sized according to the book. For example, if you are doing a trade paperback, each page would be 5.5 inches wide and 8.5 inches tall. You can set it up in InDesign as facing pages, but the printer will want you to export it as individual pages, not two page spreads. The wrap-around cover will be provided as one file. They aren't going to want you to send them separate files for the back, spine, and front portions. They will want you to send it in the exact dimensions of the final book, no extra bleed space added on, but usually they will tell you to not put important information within 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the borders, as this area is subject to getting cut.

    2) I don't understand this question. But unless you want an image of the cover to appear INSIDE the book, then you should not include them in your interior file

    3) You should not need to set a specific bleed margin, but you may want to make your inside margins for the text be wider than the outside margins. For example, when I set a fiction novel as a perfect bound trade paperback, I typically make my interior margin 0.8125 in and my exterior margin 0.75 in. This results in a book that opens well without the owner having to pull hard at the binding to read the text near the spine, and it allows ample room for the person to hold the book open and not have to move their thumbs to read text that comes to the outside margins.

  • September 30, 2011 at 9:37 am #60653
    RoManuV

    Member

    Hello CoreenM,

    Thank you very much for your detailed answer.

    The second question was about the content (ads for instance) that must appear on the inside of the front cover and on the inside of the back cover.

    From your answer I understand that my “Cover.PDF” file must include:

    a) one page for the front cover+spine+back cover assembled together, no bleed margins between them

    b) one page for the content to be printed on the inside of the front cover

    c) one page for the content to be printed on the inside of the back cover

    And the “Content.PDF” file will consist of single pages – only the content of the book.

    I also understand that there is no need for an inside bleed margin for the facing pages of the content document, but only for a reasonably wide inside margin, allowing the binding and facilitating the book manipulation.

    Thank you.

  • September 30, 2011 at 9:51 am #60654
    Coreen Montagna

    Member

    You are welcome. You seem to have it all correct.

    You might want to check with your printer to see whether or not they CAN print on the inside of the cover. That might not be an option for you. If it is, then they would probably want just one file that contains the front inside image, spine blank area, back inside image (as if the cover were a two sided page). If it isn't, then you will want to put those images in the interior file, perhaps as the very first and very last pages. My guess is that you won't be able to print on the back side of the cover, but I could be wrong. I glanced through a bunch of paperback books on my bookshelf, and none of them contain anything on the back side of the cover.

    Also, check with your printer, but all the ones I have worked with for perfect bound trade paperback require that your interior file have a page count that is a multiple of four. If it isn't, you will need to add blank pages in the front or back or elsewhere to get your page count to a multple of four (i.e., page count of 228 is good, page count of 230 is not).

  • September 30, 2011 at 10:22 am #60655
    RoManuV

    Member

    I am very grateful for your assistance, you covered all my questions and now I can go on with my work.

    Thank you!

  • October 11, 2011 at 5:13 pm #60742
    Mr.Screens

    Member

    RoManuV, you've probably finished your project and shipped it off by now, but I thought I'd add a couple of comments to the info coreenm provided.

    When I prepare a cover file for a perfect-bound book, I ask the printer to provide the spine width based on the paper's PPI (pages per inch) value. It's usually some lengthy fraction, like .6875″ (11/16″). The way I build my template is as a single page that's (page trim width x 2) + (the spine width) wide by (page trim height) high. So, for example a 5.5″ x 8.5″ book might have a cover layout of 11.6875″ x 8.5″. The tip I want to pass on is to use ID's column guides feature to create your spine area. Go to Margins and Columns…, say you want 2 columns, and use the spine width as the gutter (in this example, .6875″). That will create perfect front cover, back cover, and spine areas for. Be sure to include a .125″ bleed all around the outside edge of your cover.

    When ID5 came out featuring multiple page sizes in a single document, one of the sample docs I saw was a book cover with separate pages for front, back, and spine; but I've never known a printer who wanted a cover submitted as three separate pages.

    Also, in my experience there's no problem printing the inside covers of a paperback (perfect-bound) book. You just have to pay for it. I usually submit these as a separate two-page file, one page per inside cover, at the trim size of the book (I don't worry about the spine for inside covers).

  • October 15, 2011 at 4:33 pm #60780
    RoManuV

    Member

    Mr. Screens, thank you indeed for your advice. As a matter of fact, I have already finished my book but I all went perfectly.

    I prepared the cover exactly as you said, i.e. asked the printer for the dimension of the spine and included it in the single page document “Cover.PDF” consisting of: front cover + spine + back cover, with the appropriate bleed margin on the contour.

    The inside consisted in facing-pages documents (one per chapter), exported as single pages “Content.PDF”.

    And I left the inside covers blank for this one, but I noted the possibility of printing on the inside of the covers, I'll certainly use it when I'll need it.

    Thank you again.

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