double page spreads

[pmginn]

Hello!

I have a question about doing double page spreads and couldn't find the answer in the FAQ section -

When doing double page spreads, should the 2 pages butt up against each other or should they overlap at the trim?

If they butr up against each other, what should be the size of the spread when preparing for print (in other words, what are the overall page margins, the crop margins, and the safe area margins)?

Thanks!

[amadarwin]

i think they butt against the trim, but I'm not sure.

yea, I'm no help. Your welcome.

[Justice41]

Buy a sheet of Bristol at 22"x15" and figure out how large the live area would be and rule the lines yourself. There's no rule you have to butt two seperate sheets together. Works better when you just have a large single sized piece of paper, wouldn't you think? Don't have to worry about that ridge in the middle interfering with your pencil or nib or brush.

[pmginn]

It's not so much whether or not to butt up paper, buy larger paper, or overlap the paper. What I'm wondering is, since each section (left page and right page) has to be trimmed to account for bleed (like a normal, single page), wouldn't the middle of the spread be missing a vertical section, due to trimming? Or does the left page's left margin and the right page's right margin get moved inwards, and the entire spread counts as 1 page of print?

Should I be asking what the safe area margin is on a double page spread?

[Justice41]

What you do is you trim off a quarter inch from both pages and butt them together . If you buy a large piece of bristol the overall artwork area should be 21"x15"3/4". the trim area which is the safe area for your artwork when printed would be about 1/8" of an inch inside the entire area of your overall area area. The safe area is 3/4" inside the overall area. This is the area you want to mainly keep the more important aspects of your art in.
Look at this sample I scanned in from a board I use.

[Justice41]

Save yourself the hassle for your initial pages and buy some EONBoards . After that if you like em, you keep buying em, if not you have a ready template to use for you homemade boards.

[pmginn]

Awesome, Justice. Thanks a lot! The dimensions I personally use for single pages are 10X15 safe area with a 10.625X16.375 trim area, so I'm guessing I just cut to my trim border where the pages butt up. That makes sense.

I'll check out those Eon Boards, too.

[jmil]

Don't Blueline comic pages have instructions at the bottom on how to set them up for double page spread?

I haven't used them in years, but I seem to recall something like that.

[Justice41]

Every pre-lined Board I've ever bought has the same instructions at the bottom.
Oh and when I said cut both sides I meant cut one side of each board then butt those two ends up.
Best way to get matching edges is to overlap the boards on the trim lines and cut through the trim lines. This way the cut will match perfectly. It's an old Wallpaperers trick for getting seamless ....seams.