Printer Spreads – ah the holdover from a different time. A time before every designer designs for the web and paper is a thing of the past.

When you are in charge of getting artwork ready for a book – make sure that you’re working with someone who understands printer spreads.

If you’ve ever taken a booklet apart you’ll see that if you have one all by itself the cover is on the right side and the back of the booklet is on the left side – huh? Well, that’s how it needs to print if you want to at the end of the day have a booklet that when trimmed down and stapled down the fold reads like you intend it to read.

So if you’re not setting it up for printer spreads and maybe using Word as your application – that will work OK for desktop printing. If your needs are different you should set up a budget for what’s called – prepress. This is the umbrella term for everything that has to be done to your source files so that at the end you have what you want.

If you take a piece of paper and fold it in half at the middle and then turn on its side like you’re opening a book – take a pencil and make a note on “cover” and “back”. Then open it up and on the inside right mark that and the same on the inside left. Pretty simple if you’re doing a single sheet brochure.

If you’re doing something with multiple pages say 8 – take two sheets do the same and then nest one inside the other. Now pretending that you have staples down the fold – do the same thing as before and mark the cover, page 1, page 2, page 3 etc all the way to the back cover. Now separate out the sheets and you’ll see

page 2 is next to page 7

Here’s a graphic to give you an idea of the difference and why someone even if its not you has to set up pages in printer spreads so when that booklet prints – your cover isn’t on the back.

Reader Spreads vs Print Spreads

Austin Print Consultant

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Someone who could potentially save you hundreds maybe thousands of dollars because we understand not just what you ask for but what you probably really need but aren’t sure how to ask for it.