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Using a printers template

Enthusiast ,
Mar 01, 2025 Mar 01, 2025

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I regularly create covers for Print on Demand Amazon books. The way this works is that a template is acquired from Ingramspark (see the attached jpg image) as a pdf document. I have been using Photoshop which works reasonably well. Having opened the pdf, I create a marquee around the coloured part - which is the actual cover template - and then trim away the white surround. But it occurs to me that the process might be more efficient with InDesign. 

The question therefore is: how do I achieve a cropped template in my ID desktop to start creating new layers with images and text etc? I need to save the completed cover as a png or jpg for Amazon. I am told that I can't crop out part of a page in ID but is that right? Can't understand why that isn't an option. Maybe I have to crop in PHOTOSHOP and then open in ID?

Any advice gratefully received.

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correct answers 2 Correct answers

Community Expert , Mar 02, 2025 Mar 02, 2025

In Photoshop you crop the Canvas - which is fine. 

 

InDesign works with physical page sizes, so you don't Crop pages, you resize them. And you do this with the Page Tool. 

 

I have a nifty script on my mac that resizes a page to a bounding box - which is essentially the same as 'cropping' in Photoshop. 

Not on my Mac at the moment, but can share with you tomorrow. 

 

Basically you'll place the file in the centre of any page, and then have it selected and run the script and it resizes the page t

...

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Community Expert , Mar 02, 2025 Mar 02, 2025

@m5heath there's already  a script that I just found - no need to wait for me

https://creativepro.com/scripts-to-resize-pages-to-content-in-indesign/

 

 

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Community Expert ,
Mar 01, 2025 Mar 01, 2025

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If I understand your question correctly, then you need to create an InDesign document of the desired size, place this PDF in the InDesign document, then just crop the placed PDF frame to the desired size

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Enthusiast ,
Mar 01, 2025 Mar 01, 2025

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Yes - although it would be nice if there was some way of opening the document in a page that was the same size as the document by default. But I don't know how to do the cropping. And can I modify the page size within ID?

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Community Expert ,
Mar 01, 2025 Mar 01, 2025

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quote

But I don't know how to do the cropping. And can I modify the page size within ID?

By @m5heath

 

These questions imply that your experience of working in InDesign is below the very basics at this point. There's, obviously, nothing wrong with it. It's just that you won't be able to achieve much in InDesign anyway until you get at least some basic knowledge (whether by formal training or self-learning).

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Enthusiast ,
Mar 02, 2025 Mar 02, 2025

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Having produced about 30 complete novels perfectly  satisfactorily with ID I think I can say that my  experience of working with it is not 'below the very basics'. But I have never produced the POD cover with ID and I am seeking help with that. I may of course be very stupid.

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Community Expert ,
Mar 02, 2025 Mar 02, 2025

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If that's the case - I may be very stupid too - because you seem experienced in InDesign but can't figure this out, which means I don't really understand where you're having issues. 

 

Maybe some more screenshots of the problematic are you're experiencing. 

 

I've designed books/magazines in InDesign for over 25 years so it's almost second-nature to me, so maybe I'm oversimplifying it or not fully grasping what the issue is. 

 

I've never designed for Amazon templates or Ingramsparks - or published anything through online vendors - maybe this is not what I'm not grasping. 

 

Lets help each other to understand and solve the issue! 

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Community Expert ,
Mar 01, 2025 Mar 01, 2025

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I'm confused. If you're laying out the covers for KDP (Amazon), why are you using templates from Ingram? The KDP system has its own page for generating layout templates precisely sized to a trim size and spine thickness/page count.

 

Or... are these "printer's templates" giving you the size layout, or actual art templates that print with your information?

 

In any case, you should be able to lay the JPEG/PDF file into an ID document, sized and scaled so that its trim lines match the physical layout (margins etc.) Anything that extends past the trim lines into the bleed is irrelevant as it will be trimmed away after printing, whether it's extended background art, bleed lines/crops, or empty space and printer's marks. You shouldn't need to pre-trim, pre-scale or pre-pare it in much of any way. (ETA after reading your first reply above: it's no special trick to lay in an art element larger than the page definition as long as you scale the "live" area to match your page or other desired size. All trim/crop/sizing for submission is done by cropping at the PDF export stage to the exact dimensions KDP requires.)

 

But a clearer description of your workflow and why you're using templates across platforms would help with a more focused answer.

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Enthusiast ,
Mar 01, 2025 Mar 01, 2025

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Hi James,

Many thanks for responding. Using Ingramspark is a bit of a red herring. The templates are virtually identical to KDP but there are commercial reasons for using Ingramspark which I haven't queried - frankly it doesn't matter. I normally open the pdf in Photoshop and then trim away all the white surround (refer to my image). It is an opened out template comprising, left to right, the back cover, the spine and the front cover. Every book is different because of the spine width. KDP are very picky about exact sizes and resolutions. I then add various layers including the cover image, the barcode, logos, spine text and the 'blurb' on the back of the book. I save the final result as a jpg normally and that is my workflow. But I have wondered whether ID is a better platform - in particular is it not better at handling text than PHOTOSHOP?

I loaded up a template in ID but I want to get rid of the white surround. Once I have done that I don't think I will have any difficulty. I know I can print a document from a selected portion of a page but I find the white surround annoying and distracting. If I can't get rid of it I will stick to PHOTOSHOP.

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Community Expert ,
Mar 01, 2025 Mar 01, 2025

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InDesign is the only tool I'd use for any process like this. But to be honest, you're using such a convoluted workflow for this (and I'm still not clear whether you are using layout templates or artwork templates) and lacking some important fundamental skills with ID, that I'm not sure how to get you from there to what I'd consider a proper technique.

 

As a starting point, though, InDesign is not bound to a fixed page size as is Photoshop; you can place things partially on the working pages and it doesn't matter how much they extend off into the bleed/pasteboard. So any template you download from wherever can be placed at the needed/matched size to the three cover elements, and any unwanted content (marks, blank margin, copyright notices, etc.) will simply be chopped off when you export to PDF — which should be your output/submission format, not JPEG.

 

If you're using the template purely as a layout guide, it's best to evolve past that and use numerical setup for the three panels, which KDP will give you to the smallest value when you use their layout calculator.

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Community Expert ,
Mar 01, 2025 Mar 01, 2025

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You might want to look at this, a generic 3-page cover layout file I pulled together a while ago. Besides being the correct overall approach to do cover layouts in ID, it's fully annotated with what might be useful information.

  • Three-Page Book Cover Layout Template (for InDesign)

 

For some reason, I can't make that link work correctly, It's on my DPR page, though, at:

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Enthusiast ,
Mar 02, 2025 Mar 02, 2025

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Thanks for that - now downloaded.

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Community Expert ,
Mar 02, 2025 Mar 02, 2025

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@m5heath there's already  a script that I just found - no need to wait for me

https://creativepro.com/scripts-to-resize-pages-to-content-in-indesign/

 

 

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Enthusiast ,
Mar 02, 2025 Mar 02, 2025

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Got it! Many many thanks. Once again Adobe Community to the rescue!

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Community Expert ,
Mar 02, 2025 Mar 02, 2025

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Well, good luck from here. I suspect you're going to run into some hurdles getting KDP to accept your cover layout, and need to make any number of corrections that go back to fairly fundamental layout steps. The process is not forgiving and the feedback/error reporting you get is often cryptic and opaque to the point of being useless.

 

Formatting novel interiors and laying out a cover are... quite a few degrees apart in skill, demand and requirements. The former experience, however many times repeated, doesn't really build towards the skills and understanding needed for the latter. (One facet: KDP, Ingram etc. care only about fairly simple details such as minimum interior margins, and do no checking or evaluation of overall page layout and esthetics. It's not too hard to pass the upload check for interior content, but that's no guarantee of the end quality and presentation of the book.)

 

I am reading this thread as that you sought, and feel you've found, an InDesign replacement for your complicated and unusual workflow in Photoshop. Maybe you have. But as Eugene pointed out even after giving you the solutions, some projects are better done correctly/perfectly from the first steps, not corrected using things like the Page tool and auto-fitting scripts. You haven't, at least that I see, even acknowledged the difference between a dimensional template (and/or specific dimensions for all aspects of the cover, not just the spine width) and a Canva-style art template. I am not sure you understand the layout elements, dimensions and requirements KDP is going to enforce to the millimeter when you upload your layout.

 

Or maybe you have it all grasped and under control. Good luck with the cover project!

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Enthusiast ,
Mar 02, 2025 Mar 02, 2025

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James, I am amazed that you find my workflow in Photoshop complicated. I just open a template and add some layers. Almost childlike in its simplicity. And KDP have accepted over 100 of them without the slightest complaint. Its quick and easy but I was wondering whether it would be even quicker and easier in ID and now I think it might be, having discovered the page tool. I suspect in your imagination you saw something much more complicated than I wanted. Anyway I always value your comments and bless you you for responding to my bleats.

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Community Expert ,
Mar 02, 2025 Mar 02, 2025

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So, which is it? You've done some dozens, or this one is your first? And it's easy as pie, or takes a ton of work removing borders, resizing, etc.? You don't know how to "crop" pages in ID but the Page tool is a perfect solution?

 

Okay. I'll leave you to it.

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Enthusiast ,
Mar 03, 2025 Mar 03, 2025

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I worked for my son who ran Dean Street Press. He sadly died nearly 2 years ago and my daughter took over the business. Previously he was creating books using ID (living in Canada so we worked by Zoom) and evidently became quite good at it but I had never used ID at all despite having the full Adobe Creative suite. I never even saw the book text. My job was to do the covers - I have been using Photoshop for about 20 years and I'm pretty expert with it so doing the covers was a piece of cake. I must have produced well over 100 for him - possibly many more as DSP has over 400 books on Amazon. After his death we were able to revive the business as long as I could learn ID  which I have been slowly doing - partly with Youtube videos, partly with ChatGPT and in no small measure with the aid of your good self, and many thanks for that. I have now successfully produced about 15 'Print On Demand' books in ID with KDP as well as the ePub version but none of them had ever called for use of the Page tool. Once I had the idea of using ID for the covers as well I had new challenges which I now hope I  have sorted out. So that is how I'm an old hand with PS but still a newbie with ID. My pleas for help will now, have now, diminished but I hope that in extremis I can still rely on the Community - you have never let me down yet.

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Community Expert ,
Mar 03, 2025 Mar 03, 2025

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Stop by any time if you can't figure something out. 

The page tool is quite extreme for your case - you should start a new document at the dimensions you require for output, it's really as simple as that. 

 

I've created book/magazine covers for over 25 years in InDesign, if you need any help just reach out.

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Enthusiast ,
Mar 03, 2025 Mar 03, 2025

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The problem is that I am provided online with a pdf template (see again attached for ref) where only a part (the coloured part) is the actual cover template. I solve that easily in PHOTOSHOP by cropping it but if I am to achieve the same effect in ID I now know that I have to use the page tool. I could, of course, crop it in PHOTOSHOP, save it and then open in ID but that means a rather longer and more tortuous workflow. One of the ID scripts you indicated to me provides a quick and perfect fix so I'm happy - job done as far as I am concerned and I am very grateful.

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Community Expert ,
Mar 03, 2025 Mar 03, 2025

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Okay, it's a little clearer now.

 

My simple suggestion is that you stay with the workflow and methods you're using. I don't think you'll gain much by switching to both a wholly different tool/app and developing a more standard workflow with it.

 

Ideally, yes, InDesign is the right tool for this job. Second, perhaps, would be Illustrator. (The two are often used interchangeably in niches like packaging design, for example.) Photoshop... well, old-school, PS was used for everything including resumes and brochures, and it grew a few features (such as live/body text handling) for that user base, but overall it's not a good tool for layout. Its advantage is that everyone seems to have a copy, licensed or not, and almost any reasonably recent version will do everything this week's version does, and so it becomes a sort of baseline tool for those getting into "graphic design."

 

As for picking up the methods and processes by searching the net... well, let's just say the quality and validity of the material out there, from old blogs to ChatGPT's latest epiphanies, varies. I occasionally see bits and tricks that even the very experienced crowd here might find awesome. But mostly, it's sort of mediocre stuff, often niche and from self-trained 'gurus' who know one technique or process or niche and aren't aware of their own limitations. Then... much of it is horribly outdated, and unless the author has been conscientious enough to date their post or tutorial, you can find yourself working through steps and processes that are literally two decades out of date. (And either no longer supported/working, or long since supplanted by more sophisticated features and alternatives.)

 

Nowhere have I seen more of this... questionable quality information than in DIY/self-/small-scale publishing, and that's without diving into the next layer of murk that is e-book publishing. Seriously. Many of the posts and advice and expertise I find in this realm should result in the authors having their computer taken away from them.

 

So I don't know how you exactly arrived at the workflow you've outlined, of getting (art?) templates from one source, placing and cropping them in Photoshop, adding the cover info, and then successfully getting KDP to accept them, but if it works for you, stay with it.

 

The alternative, what might be considered a more standard, flexible and professional approach, needs some mastery of InDesign and complex page layout, and a move away from art templates altogether, and more or less beginning with the layout numbers generated by KDP — not Ingram, not BookBaby, not some publishing blog or site, not some random book publisher's info pages — but from KDP directly... and, if needed, learning to use their layout template that "encodes" all these numbers for visual reference and guidance. (In my experience, newcomers use the templates for a few projects and then realize that careful numeric setup alone does nearly the entire job, so go that route.)

 

It's entirely up to you which method/s you use. If what you have is working, you don't need to change just because there's some "better" process. But if your aim is to move your work to a more professional, efficient and flexible level, InDesign is the right tool to move to, and mastering page/multi-page/complex layouts in it is the right step in that direction.

 

As always, this forum exists to support that learning curve, and the odd misunderstanding or discussion that goes a little off the rails should not put you off to further inquiry. If I can add one thing besides "do what works best for you," it's this: if you bring a question or problem here for help, answer any questions fully and carefully. We don't ask about this version or that version or this feature or that feature or this process vs etc. etc. to be annoying tech support drones; a particular setting or using the wrong feature can be absolutely key to resolving a bafflling problem. (There's few things more frustrating, in here, than a novice who argues and argues that the problem must be A, because he watched a YouTube video about it, and resists questions about issue B, which does indeed eventually turn out to be the problem.)

 

And if you're going to proceed with ID, we're here — but I recommend staying with valid tutorials, reference pages and the like that have some stamp of authority (Adobe, CreativePro, Lynda, LinkedIn) rather than random pages, blogs, queries or "answers" from AI portals. It helps a lot to be learning current, efficient, professional processes, not some trick an amateur cobbled together ten years ago, that will lead you down a road of second-rate approaches.

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Enthusiast ,
Mar 03, 2025 Mar 03, 2025

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James, thank you so much for that very full and wise guidance which I note with great care. I am very lucky to in receipt of your advice and thank you very much for the invitation to seek more help if needed - although, with what you have already given me, I hope I will be better able to manage on my own.

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Community Expert ,
Mar 02, 2025 Mar 02, 2025

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In Photoshop you crop the Canvas - which is fine. 

 

InDesign works with physical page sizes, so you don't Crop pages, you resize them. And you do this with the Page Tool. 

 

I have a nifty script on my mac that resizes a page to a bounding box - which is essentially the same as 'cropping' in Photoshop. 

Not on my Mac at the moment, but can share with you tomorrow. 

 

Basically you'll place the file in the centre of any page, and then have it selected and run the script and it resizes the page to the bounding box, of the item you have selected.

 

Of course the easiest option is to setup your document at the start - and set your page size to what you actually need at the start of the process - then place your file into the InDesign page. 

 

There's an old saying in printing, think finishing at the beginning. 

Essentially, finishing is the size, look, process used, like threadsewn, saddle stitched or whatever other finishes need to be applied. 

 

All these things are usually considered before sitting down to design a cover or a book or anything really. 

If you think finishing at the beginning you won't run into too many problems. 

 

 

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Enthusiast ,
Mar 02, 2025 Mar 02, 2025

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Hi Eugene, thanks for responding. Your script sounds exactly what I am looking for and I am excited that you can share it with me. Blessings in advance!

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Community Expert ,
Mar 02, 2025 Mar 02, 2025

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Will pop it here tomorrow if I remember - send me a DM in case I forget - I'll post it to the forum for everyone to enjoy, it could even be improved if someone fancys taking on the task.

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Enthusiast ,
Mar 02, 2025 Mar 02, 2025

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I have never had to use the Page tool before but I have now watched a couple of videos and I can see it is the answer to my probem. Your script will make so quick and convenient.

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