Two Page Spreads

This can be tricky for folks but here are a few tips. First add up your joint page width. I am using 8.5 x 8.5 book pages and this makes my width 17.

Now my viewer will not expand to where I can get 17" and this can be a problem for many. I do recommend having a large screen monitor rather than a small one. Why as certain softwares will not let you expand the ruler beyond your page width too far unless your monitor is much wider.

Find 0 stretch your picture from one point on the bar and then add the extra inches you need. I spread mine from 4 to 0 and 0 to 13 giving me 17 inches.

Now copy it before cropping it will save you from having to stretch it again.

When I am cropping I pull it back more than the amount I need as it lets me see the undershadow of the page.

And then I find the page line much easier.

Now copy paste the image to your next page and crop again.

Now sometimes Libre Office that I am using is quirky and the ruler is off. In one project, I had to fine-tune my stretch and 3 additional marks. Weird right? But anyway we should test this. I am exporting my pdf lets see the math should add up right but this picture ... ?

Look at how the arm is slightly off. Funny right. So I need to play with the bar again, but I don't mind fine-tuning to get it right. I am going to try one tick and see where that gets me as I do not believe this one is as off as the other project was.

Math should have worked, but sometimes some programs are quirky.

Well that sure to be even more off lets try the other direction.

And this won't work either.

I got it fixed. it was just a hair past 4 this time... as I said play around when the math doesn't add up. Details are essential in kids' books. Now to figure out why Amazon is giving me suddenly a white box around pictures. Celebrate always the small victories and then move on to the next challenge.

Please understand that this type of spread is for an ebook why? If you look above, note the lines push past the right and left edges on the internal side as well as to the left. These are more than just lines for a printer to work with text. On top if someone uses stitching this can make the offset more and slightly variable by page. Center images can be stretched and other images pulled in deeper, and this concept is called the creep.

The fatter your book, the bigger the creep can be or offset. The margin isn't even the same on interior pages and exterior ones. It's advisable to pay for formatting if your distributor uses stitching, as creep is very hard to set.

Unfortunately, my last two-page setters did not fully work out. One has communication problem, and the other was unable to do as they said they could. My next endeavor is to account for this using InDesign but as I said I am learning this as I go. When I work it out, I'll make a bonus tutorial.