The Number of Pages…
We often talk about a number of pages, or a number of sides, or even a number of leaves – what are they?
Every printed document has them, whether it’s a poster, a flyer, a leaflet or a book.
Simply put
A ‘side’ is one face of a piece of paper – or one ‘page’.
An unfolded piece of paper has 2 sides or 2 pages.
The 2 sides of a piece of paper, when bound into a book is one ‘leaf’ – still 2 pages.
If you fold a piece of paper down the center, you will create a, 2 leaf – 4 page, ‘section’.
All booklets must be made in sections, and the number of pages (or sides) is generally divisible by 4.
Some sections can be made from a large sheet and can be folded into many pages.
These sections can then be collected together and then cut & bound into a book.
Page order for books & booklets
What is the difference between reader’s pairs and printer’s pairs?
Printer’s pairs are the laid out spreads that will be committed to paper, Reader’s pairs are the pages laid out in the order they will be read.
We require artwork to always be supplied as single pages to avoid any confusion.
Why is it important to upload single pages in order?
Rather than supplying, e.g. the cover and back first, followed by inner pages, it’s important to supply pages in numerical order, with the cover being the front page and the back being the last. This ensures your document is printed correctly.
Page Count
The first step in page counts is understanding how they work in booklets. For a traditional booklet, you are looking at four actual booklet pages per sheet of paper. This is because you fold a sheet in half, turning two into four. An eight-page booklet would utilize two sheets, 16 pages would be four sheets, and so on. You an apply this formula regardless of paper size. As long as you fold the booklet in half, this will work.
Self-cover booklet indicates there is to be no additional cover. All pages of the booklet will be printed on the same stock. Example: 32 pages self-cover. In this case, ideally, the printer should receive one file containing 32 individual pages.
Booklet plus cover indicates there is to be a cover, usually of a heavier weight, in addition to the pages. Example: 32 pages plus cover. The cover is always assumed to be 4 pages. In this case, ideally, the printer should receive one file containing 36 individual pages, in this order, COVER – INSIDE COVER – 32 INNER PAGES – INSIDE BACK COVER – BACK COVER.
Books with spines
If a book is to have a spine, then we would prefer to receive two separate files.
1 file of separate pages for the inners, and 1 file of the front cover, inside front cover, spine, inside back cover and back cover – IN POSITION.
e.g. an A4 portrait booklet, with a 10mm spine would need a document for the cover with two pages, both 297mm tall x 430mm wide. 1 for the outer cover, 1 for the inner.
…There’s an excellent series of tutorials on designing booklets using Indesign over at TutsPlus
Page Numbers
Are a different thing altogether, this refers to the small number or letter printed on the corner of a page of a book to tell you where you are in the book and to aid in finding a particular page usually with the aid of an index.
