Bleed and overlap/ Wire-O question

[vixler]

I'm doing a square book in InDesign that will be printed using Wire-O. The printer said to use 1/8" bleed, so I'm doing that. I also added a half-inch inner margin (keeping important things farther away than that). 

The gutter was auto -et by InDesign. I used squares to create the page colors, of course adding 1/4 bleed on those.

My question is, what do I do with the gutter? Do I push the squares together so that they touch? Or do I leave it empty? What if it was NOT Wire-O, would it make a difference? 

[Rene Andritsch]

Can you please show a screenshot of your page layout. You are talking about two different values for the bleed. Usually there is only one bleed value. The bleed is necessary if you want to have elements being printed right to the edge of the page (images, type, shapes). The have to extend into and to the edge of the bleed so the cutting to the final format will not introduce areas of just “paper white” if the cutting is moving the paper.

[vixler]

Thank you. I probably should not have mentioned the margin, as it's not relevant to my question. My question is that in a spread, do the pages need to be pushed together to cover the gutter? The book will have Wire-O.

[rob day]

Hi @vixler , With a facing Page document the Inside Bleed comes from the opposite page on the spread, which for most binding methods isn’t a problem because the spreads are folded at the spine and the inside bleed would be removed by the printer’s imposition software. Wire-o is a problem because the inside page is trimmed and visible. See this thread:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/gutter-bleed-still-the-same/m-p/11367643#M198592

[vixler]

Thanks, I'm afraid this is over my head ... can I send the file to the printer as is? The pages are not overlapping, but there's no space between them. The facing pages seems to just be a viewing option. 

[Rene Andritsch]

Please show us your pages setup, so we can properly help you. As Rob already pointed out if you have elements on the inside they need their own bleed (for Wire-O binding) which is only possible when using the method he describes in the link he added to his post.
If you setup your document with no facing pages but have two pages for your parent pages it will allow you to move the pages apart from each other having bleed around both pages. 

[vixler]

Ok thanks, here is the setup. I found a Wire-O template, I would have to adjust the size a little but it's also square. Would it be simpler to just copy-paste each page into that, or is there something quicker? I'm not a designer (obviously, haha), I'm an illustrator but was asked to do the book in InDesign.

[vixler]

Oops, here it is

[Rene Andritsch · Accepted solution]

Ok. So first open the Pages Panel and select all pages starting with the first page then SHIFT clicking the last page. All the thumbnails should be selected now. Then go the Pages Panel flyout menu and deselect the option “Allow Selected Spreads to Shuffle”. 

All spreads should now have square brackets around their page numbers. Then go to Document Setup and tick off “Facing Pages”. InDesign will ask you if you want to keep the page numbering. Click yes. Now you will be able to move the pages apart from each other. Use the Page Tool for that (Shortcut SHIFT P). Adjust your bleed on the inside if necessary.

[vixler]

Great, thanks!

[Rene Andritsch]

Let us know if it works out fine. 🙂

[vixler]

I'm starting this now. My pages in the book are not numbered, and I'm not seeing the question, "do you want to keep the numbering?" I guess that makes sense.

When you say "tick off" Facing Pages, do you mean Deselect it, in other words, turn it off? As it is currently on.

When I pull the pages apart with the Pages tool, how far apart should they be?

(I do not understand the photo used as an example--to me it all looks the same).

The Wire-O book I'm working on doesn't have art that goes across the pages, each page is separate. Once it's done, I don't mind breaking into separate pages in a layout as long as the page order would end up the same. I'm not that clear on the best margin to use, as I've seen 7/8" as well as 1" and a Wire-O book I have here at home has 1/2."

Would appreciate any advice.

[vixler]

Oh--and do I leave the other shuffle option checked?

[Rene Andritsch]

Look at the screenshots I posted already above. Those settings should give you the right outcome. Yes, “Facing Pages” deselected.

[vixler]

Thanks again!

[Rene Andritsch]

Just select the right page with the page tool and use the input fields to add some space to the x value. This will shift your page further to the right.

[vixler]

Interesting, thanks. It worked after I checked Move Objects with Page. But before that occurred to me, I did some with the Selection Tool--it looks the same--but I fear invisibles is that OK that some are with the Selection Tool? Is it important that all the spacing is exactly the same? As some pages were already a tiny bit apart and others were touching.

 I'm just moving the pages toward the center to fill the new bleed area. 

[Rene Andritsch]

Usually the option should already be turned on to Move objects with the page if you have the Page Tool activated. Only this way everything stays where you had it before. It does not matter if the space between the pages is different. Only make sure that only elements from the respective page are on the bleed if elements go to the edge of the page.
I do not understand what you mean in your last sentence regarding the bleed. Can you show a screenshot?

[vixler]

Yes here's a screen shot--though it doesn't seem to upload, I get an error message. so I put it on imgur

https://imgur.com/a/GybcTEN

First one is before doing the separation. Second is right after, and third is when I moved the left page slightly to the right to cover the bleed area. I guess I could instead  change the inside bleed to 0 for the whole document?

[vixler]

I think it did upload the screenshot after all.

[Rene Andritsch]

It looks as in the middle image you moved the content. That should not happen when you move the page with the page tool and the option »Move Objects with Page« activated.

The third image looks ok. Make sure that your colored background reaches the bleed (red lines) everywhere. It does not matter if it extends a little bit but it should reach all the way to the red lines on all sides if the color covers the whole page.
There is no inside bleed. This term is reserved for that excess area outside the page format. If you mean the margin, I think it does not matter in your case.

[vixler]

Ok. My pages have all resized, inexplicably, to 8.5 x 8.5" when I had them all at 8.75" x 8.75" --when I say Pages, I mean page backgrounds (colored squares or patterns). Should I make them 8.75 again or leave them at 8.5, as InDesign did that? The print size is 8.5 x 8.5"  plus 1/4" bleed. My copy of InDesign has been acting buggy and crashing at times so I'm never sure what's supposed to happen and what's from that.

[Rene Andritsch]

Yes, so the actual page size should not have changed. You can check that with the Page Tool and have a look what is displayed for the width and height of your page at the top in the Control Panel. Make sure that the color of your background reaches until the red lines around your pages – the bleed. Please show another screenshot. The size should not have changed.

[vixler]

Thanks, my apologies, the size didn't change--I was looking at something else (a copy of the doc that was smaller, where I was testing out a Wire-O template)--I must have clicked on a tab and opened it.

[rob day]

Thanks, I'm afraid this is over my head

If you don’t have much experience with wire-o printing, a safer approach would be to design in a way that page items don’t stop at the spine—make sure they either crossover or align to an inside margin. Here pages 1-5 are OK, but 6-9 would create a trimming problem: