Help with bleed - creating a brochure

[grynch2]

Hi people. I am creating an 8 page brochure in Illustrator - each page is 8.5x11. I have done it by creating a 17x11 document for every 2 pages. None of the graphics touch the edge of the paper - they are all well within the border. Do I make the background of the documents 17"x11" or 17.25"x11.25" for bleed purposes for printing?

Here is a jpeg of the layout

http://www.gunnar.ca/bleed.htm

Thanks for any help!

[Kool]

Hi grynch, welcome to the forum. You're on the right track. Make your doc size 11 x 17 then extend your background 1/8 inch over the edge of your doc on all sides. /emoticons/cool.gif

I just looked at your layout again and it won't work as you have it layed out right now. Page 2 will not be adjoining page one on the same spread. The easiest way to deal with this is to take 2 blank sheets of paper and fold them in half together. This will give you 8 individual pages. Then number the pages 1 through 8. Now if you take the pages apart and lay them out flat you will be able to see the proper page sequence. I hope I explained this clearly. If you're confused let me know.

I love children but I don't think I could eat a whole one.

Post Edited (Kool) : 11/25/2004 5:34:30 PM GMT

[grynch2]

A little confused. I used this same methos before (minues the 1/8' overhang on all sides) for our last brochure and it turned out great. I gave the printers 1 17x11 doc with pages 1 & 2 on it (and an other with pgs 3&4, etc.). It seemed to work out OK. I am going to learn InDesign to do this properly but for now I have to use Illus. and photoshop.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'Page 2 will not be adjoining page one on the same spread'. Could you elaborate?

Thanks very much for your help!

[Kool]

I'm sure a helpful pre-press guy fixed it for you before printing. Did you do what I said with the paper? If you do you will see that page 1 (front cover) is on the right hand side of the 11 x 17 spread. Page 8 (back cover) is on the left side. On the other side of the same sheet is page 2 on the left and page 7 on the right. A spread is the two pages printed on one side. All four pages that are printed on this single sheet of paper is called a signature. When the 2 signatures are collated together, stapled (stitched) and then folded you get an 8 page brochure.

I love children but I don't think I could eat a whole one.

[grynch2]

I did - I guess I should number those pages 2 and 3 - as the cover is seperate. What I posted are the first 2 pages when you open the brochure.

Does that make a difference?

[Kool]

arghhh! This is so hard to explain yet so easy to demonstrate in person LOL. OK take the papers you numbered and look at them. You will see that the page you have marked #1 on your sample is on the left hand side of the spread while the page you have marked #2 is on the right hand side of a completly different spread.

I love children but I don't think I could eat a whole one.

[Broacher]

You're a mean one, mister.

Booklet imposition is what this is called. Saddlestitch setup, to be more precise. Be sure to talk to your printer first if you are doing this yourself. Many now use software that does this automatically, faster, and truer than what we designers can do. Especially if it's being printed on a larger sheet-- then they just prefer everything in single pages, reader spreads as they're going to be ganging them up anyways to fill the full sheet.

BTW, this 'Booklet Imposition' is just one of those things that's NOT part of the new ID toolset. Too bad-- even ol' PageMaker could do this automatically ... well, most of the time.

[morea]

you would need to lay the pages out in spreads as follows:

8-1
2-7
6-3
4-5

right?

I haven't lost my mind... it's backed up on disk somewhere.

[MD]

Yes Morea you are correct. I find it is easiest to make a mock brochure. Take 2 pieces of scrap paper, fold, & number the pages. When you take it back apart you will see what they are talking about. I wouldn't worry about restructuring this document though, it will be a lot easier for your printer to import the .eps files into quark and fixing it there. A 5 min fix.

Learn Quark or InDesign.

[Broacher]

>>files into quark and fixing it there. A 5 min fix<<

Agreed. And unless you know for sure what the print sheet size is, you might end up even saving the printer some time by NOT trying to do it yourself.

BTW, there's dead easy method for lightening fast simple impositions that I worked out for Quark or PageMaker (or even ID, I guess). Here's how to set it up:

Export to a default-named sequential EPS files (that is, all EPS with names like Page_1.eps) to a target 'Imposition' directory; create the imposition layout in your layout app linking the correct files in place and save as a template (probably in the same directory as the EPSs for convenient recall). That's the first time.

After this, whenever you need to impose AI or any EPS pages, just export and overwrite the EPSs in the same directory (provided there are the same number of pages!) and open the template again--- all done!

As for bleeds-- you'd have to include these in the EPSs, crop to spine where necessary in layout, and make sure that all subsequent EPSs include the same bleed 'area' whether they bleed or not.