Booklet layout with a gate fold.

[TyBB]

Hi all, hope someone can help. I need to produce a booklet (user manual) and the first page (not the cover) has to fold out (a gate fold) so it can be referenced while the rest of the booklet is used. I will need to be printed on both sides. Any idea how I lay this out?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Are you printing this in-house (office-grade printer, hand binding, etc.) or will it be commercially produced?

Basically, you are going to want to use a spread defined in the Parent Pages, or possibly a double-width page, in the right places. I don't know if this can be handled by the default booklet features in either InDesign or Acrobat, so for in-house work it would have to be a manual print, assembly and bind job, and for a commercial printing... you will need to ask the printer and follow their setup instructions very carefully.

[TyBB]

This will be commercially printed, I'll do what you suggested and contact the printer (this will be fun, I'm in the UK they are in China...🙄)

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

It may be easier than you think. It is ALWAYS essential to get the printing layout and specs right from the actual printer — that is, not rely on generic specs or ones from some other source — especially for anything outside standard size, layout, colors etc.

However, the Chinese printers are used to serving the world and I suspect you will be able to get very detailed instructions on how to provide your PDF print files. But if anything they describe doesn't make sense, feel free to ask here for guidance on how to get from ID to those results.

They may well want the gatefold pages separately; oversized and 'special' pages are usually printed separately and 'tipped in' or manually added to a page stack before binding and trimming, rather than part of a single print flow.

[rob day]

Hi @TyBB , I setup gatefolds as reader spreads relative to the facing pages’ spine, and let the printer handle the gatefold imposition—you might want to provide a folded dummy so it is clear you want pages 1, 2 & 3 to gatefold.

This would be the text interior with no cover:

[TyBB]

More than helpful, thanks.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I suggest you'll be safe creating a standard facing-pages layout, then add one of the following Parent layouts:

• A single page, resized to double page size for the two sides of the gatefold.
• Two double pages if you need 'facing' features like mirror margins and page numbering. (Probably not; for two pages you can manage these details manually, in the layout.)
• A two-page spread if you want to have single-page layouts on your gatefold;
• Or two such spreads, again, if you will want managed margins and so forth.

Just insert the double pages or spreads in the correct place in the InDesign file or book for now, and wait for specific PDF ordering and assembly details.

[TyBB]

Thanks for your help on this, I am contacting the printers and will be sure to come back here if I can't make sense of what they are saying!

[Ddog9]

Create each side as 4 single pages with each of the 2 outer pages 1/8" narrower than the 2 inner pages. Your printer then has extra space for the gate fold. The printer should be able to impose with their imposition software (Preps) for their presses.