Hi, this is Laurie Ruhlin with InDesign Secrets.
In this video, we're going to make a soft
cover book cover for a book that might be printed using an OnDemand book publisher
will create the front the spine in the back cover.
The great thing about this method is
that the document is set up as three separate pages that you can export
the cover spine or back page separately as a JPEG or PDF for promotional use.
Or you can export all three pages as a spread for the production file.
We need to calculate the spine thickness,
which depends upon the number of pages multiplied by the thickness of the paper.
We also want the spine to be flexible so
we can modify the thickness later if pages are added or removed.
You'll see in my final file that I have
three separate pages here that are all aligned next to each other.
Let's learn how to set those up.
So now let's create our book cover from scratch.
I'll choose, file new, come over to document and I want to make
my size six inches wide by nine inches high.
The orientation is portrait.
I want three pages.
I do not want facing pages or primary text frame and the columns will stay at one.
Now I'm going to leave the margins
at a half of an inch because I want to show you a typical problem that will
run into and I'll change the bleed to be PowerPoint one to five.
I'll hit create and I'll see in my pages panel that I have three separate pages.
Now, the first step is to bring these pages so that they are next to each other.
Now, if I try to drag two up next to one,
it doesn't work, so I have to tell it to shuffle.
I'm going to uncheck the WOW document pages to shuffle, and by doing this,
I'm now able to grab page two and put it right next to page one.
So I'll do that for all three of those pages.
And they're now sitting right next to each other.
Now, the middle page is going to be my spine.
So I'll selected choose my page tool and I'll come up to the with and click
on the W type in a one inch width and then I'll hit return.
Now it's going to give me an error message.
I can't make a one inch width of my page with half inch margins.
It just doesn't work.
So I have to reduce the margin value.
I'll do that by coming to the layout menu margins in columns and just reduce
my margin value down two point one to five o'clock.
OK, my margins are much smaller.
So now when I come up to my with value
and type in one and hit return, I have a one inch wide spine with smaller margins.
The next thing I have to do is to align
these three pages so that they're right next to each other.
I could manually align them,
but the problem is, is that I may drag them and not make them perfect.
So I'm going to use the aligned panel.
I'll select my spine, hold the shift key down and select the other two pages.
Now, do notice that I'm using the page tool.
Now that I have all three of these pages selected, I'll go to the aligned panel,
choose to align them to say their top edges.
I'll come down to distribute spacing and make sure I have zero in the value
and then I'll hit this button to distribute horizontal space.
All three of my pages are right next to each other.
Next, I'm going to return to my selection tool.
I'll go back to my other document and copy and paste this information.
I'll select all.
I'll copy this, come back to my untitled document and choose to paste it in place
so it goes right exactly where it came from.
Now, the other great thing about using
the method of three separate pages is that I can have the spine be flexible,
I can design my book cover first and then work on the content of the book once.
I'm sure of the exact number of pages,
I can just recalculate the width of the spine.
There are many online calculators out
there and I just found one here online and I can type in the trim size six
by nine and type in my page count that I might have.
I'll hit calculate the cover size
in my spine with is PowerPoint six, seven, five, six.
So I'll use this for now.
I'll go ahead and select this number. Copy it.
Come on back here and again, use my page tool to select the spine page.
I'll come up to my with value and paste that number in when I hit return.
You'll notice that the spine with gets
smaller now because my reference point here is set to the center.
It got smaller into the center.
It didn't go left or right.
Now I have to align them again.
So I have my spine selected.
I'll hold the shift key, select the other two pages,
align and distribute the space and bring them in closer.
Now that I have my book cover set up
with the three separate pages and I'm confident that my spine is the exact size
we're going to export this file export and I can choose JPEG or PDF first.
I'm going to do the JPEG and I'll come up
here and type in SVG for cover as a JPEG and hit save.
Now my range.
I have to choose which page is the cover.
So I'll choose page three and I'll make sure that it's set to pages.
I can type in any image quality that I might need and hit export.
And now I have an exported JPEG of just the cover.
Now I like to export this as a PDF for all three pages.
I'll choose file export.
Make sure PDF is chosen at the bottom
of Q&A previous PDF to get the name and click save.
And now I'd like to make sure that it's
all pages spread's and I do want to have a bleed.
So I'll choose crop marks and the bleed
settings that I set up in the new document, a click export.
And here is my PDF with the back cover,
the spine and the front cover ready for production.
So I hope this helped you learn how to create a soft cover book wrap
with a spine back cover and front cover using InDesign.
Hi, I'm Mike Reagan, editor in chief of InDesign Secrets.
And if you want lots more tips like this,
be sure to check out InDesign Secrets dot com and subscribe to InDesign magazine.