Setting up a blank page in Publish by Zaweba

Every publication rests on a few decisions you make before the first word goes down: how big the paper is, which way round it sits, how far the text stays from the edge, and whether colour runs off the page. In Publish by Zaweba those choices are made when you start a blank publication, and getting them right at the beginning saves a lot of nudging later.

A blank publication can be A4, A5, A3, Letter, DL, business card, postcard or a custom size. Each can be portrait or landscape, with margins, bleed, and single or facing pages. That short list covers most of what people print at home or send to a print shop.

Matching the size to the job

Start from what will physically happen to the finished piece. A notice for a board or a shop window is usually A4 or A3. A flyer that goes through doors or sits on a counter is often A5, which is half of A4. DL is the long, slim size that fits a standard envelope, so it suits leaflets, compliment slips and price lists that get posted. Letter is the common size in North America, and it is there for anyone printing for readers or printers who work to it.

Business card and postcard sizes are small and unforgiving. With so little room, the margins matter more than on a big poster, and it pays to set them generously so nothing important ends up near a trimmed edge. If your job does not fit any of the standard sizes, such as a narrow bookmark or a square card, choose a custom size and give the width and height you need.

Orientation is simply which way round the page sits. Posters and menus are often portrait; a certificate or a wide banner often looks better landscape. It is easier to choose this at the start than to move every frame round afterwards.

Margins are a promise to yourself

Margins mark the safe area where your text and important pictures belong. Frames can snap to them as you move things, so a sensible margin also makes neat alignment easier. Home printers cannot print right to the edge of the paper, and print shops trim with a little tolerance, so keeping words inside the margins protects them in both cases.

On a newsletter, wider outer margins give the page room to breathe and leave space for a thumb. On a poster you might keep them modest so the headline can be as big as possible. There is no single correct number; the point is to pick one and let every frame respect it.

What bleed is for

Bleed is the extra strip beyond the edge of the page that is cut away after printing. If a picture or a background colour is meant to reach the very edge, it should run out into the bleed. Then, when the trim is slightly off, you still get colour to the edge rather than a thin white line.

If you are printing at home on plain paper, you will usually not trim anything and bleed hardly matters. If a print shop is producing the job, bleed is one of the first things they check. Set it when you set up the page, stretch background pictures and colour blocks out to the bleed, and keep text well inside the margins. Page background colours are printed into the bleed as well, which takes care of full colour pages without extra effort.

Single pages or facing pages

Single pages suit anything that is one sheet or printed on one side: flyers, posters, tickets, certificates. Facing pages suit anything read as a spread, like a newsletter or a small brochure. With facing pages the margins mirror, so the inside margins sit next to the fold and the outside margins sit at the outer edges. That is what you want when the pages will be stapled or folded.

If you are not sure, think about how a reader will hold the finished piece. Something that opens like a book wants facing pages. Something you hand over flat does not.

A short routine before you start

Decide where the job will be printed, pick the size and orientation to match, set margins wide enough to keep words safe, add bleed if anything touches the edge, and choose single or facing pages by how the piece will be read. Those choices take a minute, and they shape everything from where your guides fall to how cleanly the PDF comes back from the printer.

If you would rather not start from nothing, the templates in Publish by Zaweba already have these settings made for common jobs. A blank page is there for when you know exactly what you want.