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karenf1
Known Participant
May 11, 2017
Question

Artboard set up of facing pages that abut?

  • May 11, 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 4324 views

I've created a children's book in .ai cs6. I'd like to create a document with 32 pages the way you'd do it in an ID doc. Two facing pages with a top bleed and bleed on left of lefthand pages and bleed on right of righthand pages - but no gap in between them. I originally set it up as just 16 spreads - with bleed all around -- but when I created a PDF to upload to Createspace the document was rejected due to it being 16 pages - as their minimum is 24 - and they require a spread be 2 separate pages.

Is there a way to set my .AI doc up so that it is 32 pages (16 / 2 page spreads)? I'll be producing many of these books and would love to cut an ID doc / mechanical out of the process! Many thanks in advance!

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    3 replies

    K
    karenf1Author
    Known Participant
    May 11, 2017

    Just to summarize - Any way to create 2 facing pages out of a horizontal tabloid Artboard in either AI or in the PDF output of AI file would be heavenly! The spread would have bleed top & bottom and Left & Right but not at center where the pages abut.

    I promise to sacrifice several small animals (stuffed only, of course!) to anyone who helps me figure this out.

      Monika Gause
      Community Expert
      Monika GauseCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      May 11, 2017

      This cannot be "figured out" in Illustrator.

      It would need some serious intervention into the file format. Maybe a plugin could operate at that level, but maybe not even that.

      I don't know of a plugin that does this. Maybe ESKO has this in their suite (but their plugin is about 4 times the price tag of Illustrator itself).

      You might want to think about workflows including InDesign.

      Sacrificing plushies is an absolute no-go.

      The zebras do not approve.

        Larry G. Schneider
        Community Expert
        Larry G. SchneiderCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        May 11, 2017

        OHHHHH! I will try that! I knew in the back of my head that you could put an artboard in an art board. I've never dne it but I will go look for instructions online - by any chance would you have a suggestion about where to learn how to do that? Many thanks!


        Alright, I tried but it seems as though you cant have artboards with a different bleed setting from the document. Used to be that you could get away with this in AI but not now.

        Monika Gause
        Community Expert
        Monika GauseCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        May 11, 2017

        InDesign is the tool for this kind of job.

          K
          karenf1Author
          Known Participant
          May 11, 2017

          Thanks as always, Monica! I feared that this was the answer. But . . . a girl can hope! ;-/

          Doug A Roberts
          Community Expert
          Doug A RobertsCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          May 11, 2017

          i think you could edit the page setup in acrobat after the fact, but i really don't understand why you'd want to cut ID out of the process. it'll make your life much easier.

            K
            karenf1Author
            Known Participant
            May 11, 2017

            Thanks Doug - The reason I'd like to cut ID out of the process is this:

            These books are so simple. An image (mostly one across the entire spread) and a single line of text that's set up with paragraph styles. All I have to do is Save a Copy as PDF - and I'm done! Moving it all into ID if it could be avoided would be great.

            Aslo I'm not that familiar with ID - not sure if fonts are embedding - frankly  - not sure of what I "don't know, that I don't know," that could bite me in the butt later on.

            But mostly - I'll be producing lots of these - so it's immensely preferable to cut the ID step out of the process - if I could do this all in AI with the proper Artboard to PDF workflow. In that case ID adds nothing but extra work and extra possible problems.

            Many thanks for your help!

            One more reason to skip ID - while it's not such a big deal - it's much easier and much more intuitive to make small changes to art when tweaking (and I AM the queen of tweaking) it's easier to do it in AI - and shift things and instantly see how they look and if I like it or want to command+Z it. IT may not be such a huge deal to use ID's edit original but till not the same at all.

            Also - if there are going to be many of these - building a library/file system of AI & PDF files is 2/3's the work if I don't need to add in the ID files!

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