How do I put my spine in the middle?

[Chris P. Bacon]

A printing company requires me to have my cover spine in the middle when I provide the document:

And this is my setup now:

My spine right now it's on the left side of the white line that represents the center.

I can move it to the right side too, but I cannot put it in the middle, so that the white line would cross it in the middle.

How do I follow the requirements to have it in the middle?

My spine marked with X.

[Chris P. Bacon]

And, is it possible to give the page number 3 a dynamic number, which would mean: the page number before the last page?

My content has to be provided in a separate PDF file, therefore I cannot sync the numberings between the 2.

But, there will never be a page number on the page that is marked with number 3, because both 2 and 3 will be advertisement pages, right on the back side of the cover pages.

Will that cause any confusion for the printer?

[chrisg11235813]

You'll probably have to create separate file for the covers with the spine

Typically the pages inside your book don't need a spine.

[chrisg11235813]

*you could create 2 spine pages (half the width of the spine, 1 on each side of the centre-line

[Chris P. Bacon]

Do I really have to do that and compose my spine content across 2 spreads?

Or it would work as it is?

My 4 cover pages (2 inner, 2 outer)  + the spine are already in a separate file, what you see on the screenshot.

[Chris P. Bacon]

But they require 1 page for the spine, not 2. Is it actually possible to make 2 pages and declare it as 1?

[chrisg11235813]

when you export, choose "Spreads" instead of pages

[Willi Adelberger]

Don't allow to shuffle pages.

[Chris P. Bacon]

Why not?

[Willi Adelberger]

So you can put 3 pages into a single spread.

[Willi Adelberger]

Look here, how it can be done. For print export as spread.

[Chris P. Bacon]

I have the same setup, so it's already done.

It seems that so far the 3 pages are in the right order, it doesn't matter on which side of the white separator line the spine is?

[rob day]

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/aligning-pages-side-by-side-with-0-space-between...

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

This discussion pretty well covered it, including dumb ideas. 🙂

—

[chrisg11235813]

it does not matter what side the spine is on.  In fact you could just turn off facing pages.

[rob day]

Hi @chrisg11235813 , if you turn off facing pages the three pages can float and become misaligned. With Facing pages an adjustment to the spine width keeps the back and front cover aligned. See the above link.

[chrisg11235813]

Fair point. Since it is 3 pages I'd just create a new document and uncheck the Allow Document Pages to Shufle option and rearange the pages to be aligned. Adjust individual page widths before you join them into spreads, that should avoid any alignment issues.

[Willi Adelberger]

It does not matter here, on which side of the line the spine is.

[Laubender]

@Willi Adelberger said: "It does not matter here, on which side of the line the spine is."

I agree very much on this.

Hi @Chris P. Bacon  ,

when done with a facing-pages document like yours simply add a page in the first spread dedicated for the spine of the book jacket.

It does not matter at all, if technically spoken, there is a "spine" at all ( non-facing pages document ) or if the technical spine ( facing pages document ) is at the left, at the right, between page 1 or page 2 or, if you add one, to page 3. In every case one could export all two or three pages by exporting the whole spread.

Perhaps one thing to add:

It would make very much sense, as Rob Day has showed, to add a page to the first spread that is meant for the "spine" of the book jacket. It would be easier to change its width with automatically moving elements on it when you do this in a facing-pages document.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

[Chris P. Bacon]

Hi @Laubender ,

my spine is a page, because when I right click it, I get the page menu:

It's between the 2 cover pages, so it's already added as a page, if that's what you meant.

[rob day]

My spine right now it's on the left side of the white line that represents the center.

The white line doesn't represent the center, it's the fold mark between the spine and front cover of the 3 panel spread. Your export to PDF will be as a single spread

When you design a facing page book the spreads are folded on the center line and gathered into signatures.

[rob day]

Their instructions are odd. They are asking for a regular 3 page facing document with page 1 as the back cover, and the page 2-3 spread as the spine and front cover. It seems like they don't realize it is possible to have a single, 3 page spread, which is what you have setup.