Single and facing pages in Publish by Zaweba

Newsletters, programmes and booklets are read as pairs of pages, a left and a right, opened like a book. Flyers, posters and certificates are read one sheet at a time. Publish by Zaweba lets you set a publication up either way, as single pages or as facing pages, and the choice shapes how its margins behave.

It's a decision best made at the start, when you create the publication, because it affects where text and pictures can safely sit on every page.

What facing pages change

With single pages, every page has the same left and right margins. That's right for anything printed on one side or pinned on a wall. With facing pages, the margins mirror: a left-hand page and a right-hand page are treated as a pair, so the inside margins (the ones next to the fold or the staples) match each other, and so do the outside ones.

Mirrored margins matter as soon as pages are bound. Staples, a fold or a ring binding eat a little of the inside edge, and text that runs too close to it becomes hard to read. With facing pages you can give the inside a little more room than the outside, and Publish keeps that consistent on both sides of every spread.

Choosing between the two

Pick single pages for flyers, posters, menus on a single card, certificates, tickets, business cards and anything else that's one sheet or one side. Pick facing pages for a multi-page newsletter, a parish magazine, an event programme or any booklet that will be folded or stapled. The newsletter templates are a good guide: a two-page or four-page newsletter is designed to be read as a document, so it benefits from margins that know which side of the fold they're on.

If you're making a booklet to print yourself with File > Export booklet PDF, facing pages make particular sense. The booklet export rearranges pages two to a side in saddle-stitch order, and mirrored margins mean the inner edges of every pair line up neatly at the fold once the sheets are stapled.

Viewing and working page by page

One honest point about how Publish shows a document: pages are shown one at a time, and there's no two-page spread view. You work on the left-hand page, then the right-hand page, rather than seeing both side by side on screen.

That's simpler to work with than it might sound, but it does call for a couple of habits. When something should line up across a spread, such as a photo strip or a headline that runs across both pages, use the rulers and guides to place it at the same height on each page rather than judging it by eye. Master pages help a great deal here too. Put headers, footers and page numbers on the master so they're identical on every page, and they'll match across each spread without any extra effort.

To check how a spread will really look, export a PDF and view it in a reader that can show two pages side by side. Publish can open an exported PDF straight in PDF by Zaweba, and a quick look at the result before printing catches the alignment problems that page-at-a-time editing can hide.

Keeping long documents tidy

As a publication grows past a couple of pages, a little discipline keeps it manageable. Give stories that run across pages linked text frames, so the text flows from one page to the next by itself rather than being cut and pasted. Use paragraph styles for headings and body text so every page reads the same. And keep the inside and outside margins in mind when placing pictures, because a photo that runs into the fold will lose part of itself when the booklet is stapled.

Facing pages are a small setting with a big effect on how professional a booklet feels. Set it at the start, let the mirrored margins do their work, and Publish by Zaweba takes care of the rest of the arithmetic for you.