Adding bleed and gutters to a self-published photobook

July 11, 2021 12:38 PM

I'm in the process of making an 8.5'' x 8.5'' photobook as a birthday gift for my brother, but realized some fifty pages in that I hadn't accounted for bleed. Is expanding the page (and photos) a quarter inch going to be enough? And what about gutters? ❄️ details inside.

I've been using LibreOffice Writer to compose because it works and it's what I've got. I understand there are more dedicated (and $$$) programs like InDesign, but I'm hoping there's a way to do this without having to buy and learn a whole new suite.

The doc is image-heavy, including full-page images and two-page spreads. A few pages use a 3x3 or 4x4 grid of images, also reaching the page edges. The square format makes it easy to divvy up space and snap images to the page border, and all text is safely within the default margins. When I export as PDF to spot-check, it looks flawless.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize bleed was a thing until deep into the project. The print service I'm using, Lulu, says they automatically add white borders to print-ready files that don't have proper bleed for their page size, which would ruin the look I'm going for. I've made an alternate copy where I bumped the page size to 8.75'' x 8.75'' and resized the images to match -- will this be enough, and can I proceed sizing new images to the larger page? I'm hoping the grids will still look okay even with 0.125'' of the outer squares trimmed.

Another concern: gutters. I've read that quarter-inch bleed should only really be added to the top, bottom, and outer edges of pages, while the inner spine area should ideally have a custom gutter margin dependent on page count that also does some weird overlap thing for two-page spreads (though maybe that's only for InDesign??). That sounds terribly complicated and would mess up the simple square-page format I've been using. If I just size everything for 8.75'' x 8.75'' (to be trimmed to 8.5'' square), will the inner area still look decent? Or will the inner-side grid photos and the centers of two-page spreads be hopelessly obscured? For reference, I expect this to end up 100-150 pages.

Lastly, is there a good way to add bleed and gutters to a project at the end? It would be nice if I could keep making this WYSIWYG-style on an 8.5'' square page, then just expand the end result to 8.75'' with a proper gutter for the eventual page count. Something tells me it's hardly that simple though.

Thanks, and I'll be sure to post the end result as a Projects post!

posted by Rhaomi to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

I'm a graphic designer who has never used Libre Office, but I know that Writer is basically like MS Word. You may be fighting an uphill battle.

The .0125" bleed that you've added is good. That's the typical amount of bleed. Whether all your squares will stay squares is the question; but since .125" is the typical bleed, unless they really mess up, all the trimming will be within that area. So the worst case is that a page would be shifted by as much a .25". But this is unlikely. I've never had anything trimmed THAT far off. And even if the trimming is off by .25", most people probably wouldn't notice that things aren't exactly centered.

Are you planning on having any images cover a full spread? That's where having to deal with the gutters on a page-by-page basic could create some additional issues (I'm assuming that Writer isn't capable of laying out spreads). If not, then your plan of doing everything as 8.75" pages should work.

There's not even a way in Indesign to "expand" a page to add bleed. You specify the bleed when you create the document, and then when you place the images, you make them large enough to hit the bleed line.

Writer just isn't the right tool for this kind of job. Someone may give you some additional tricks to try, but it seems like you'd be jumping through hoops, and you may not find out if things are off until after you'd paid for the book. And will it let you export a high-resolution PDF? That, and making sure your images are high enough resolution are keys to getting a good looking book.

Lulu appears to have an online tool that lets you lay out books. I can't get in because I don't have an account, but using that may minimize a lot of potential issues.

Also, Affinity Publisher is only $50, and getting that and spending a little time with it may save you a lot of time and trouble (and more than $50) in the one run.

If you haven't gotten too far with Writer, it may be worth exploring other options before you spend too much time.
posted by jonathanhughes at 1:26 PM on July 11, 2021 [3 favorites]

if you are looking for free desktop publishing tools, you might also want to try Scribus? Scribus supports adding bleed.
posted by goingonit at 1:31 PM on July 11, 2021 [4 favorites]

The gutter matters with photographs that cross spreads. In theory you could lay it out and then go in through a PDF tool and trim the gutters and bleeds to the correct size but oh that would be painful. For your grids, you want to size them within the page border and then drag the edge squares’ borders to fill the bleed, not resize the whole grid or you will end up with slightly off smaller outer photos and bigger inner photos.

I would try Lulu’s online tool. I used Apples photo book editor to lay out a similar image heavy and simple text book and it was straightforward. Doing it in word was horrible because of bleed.

Try Scribus! InDesign has a trial period but is a bit intimidating to start. Although I think this would be an excellent first project in it.

Also if you use layout software they almost always have master pages or layout pages. You lay out a couple of versions and then you can just drag and drop all your photos in very quickly and copy paste your text. Recreating the layout will be much faster.

Also you can alter bleeds in Indesign, but it can throw your layout out of whack again. Check Lulu’s recommended bleed and gutter for your print size and format (sometimes it varies for the binding type).
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 1:40 PM on July 11, 2021

Your bleeds are just fine, I wouldn't worry about gutters too much. But honestly, the more pages/spreads you can do to keep images inside the frame (no bleeds), the happier you may be. Without proper software or control of the processing/printing steps, you may be borrowing trouble here.

You might try Canva.com for this if you're tempted to switch software; you can export with bleeds. Writer is a bit of a nightmare for this. But it sounds like you're already most of the way done, so it may be just fine as is with the enlarged pages.

Regardless, I think your brother will love it. It's a very thoughtful gift and it will look fantastic, even if you notice small imperfections (which I'm sure nobody else will care about).
posted by iamkimiam at 3:34 PM on July 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

If time is that much more important than money, I would lay everything out in Libreoffice Impress or PowerPoint if you can swing it. You can create the custom page sizes, add a few outlines for the bleeds and gutters to the master slide, and then stick your pictures and captions on top. I would design everything on a two-page sized page, so you can move across a two-page spread. Then copy the pages to a new document with correctly sized pages and keep everything in the same relative position to its page. Hopefully you have some PDF viewer that will show you what it will look like in a two-page format, just to make sure you got it right. You might be better off doing the whole thing in Shutterfly instead. They have pretty decent web-based photo book tools. The price per book is a lot higher than pure DIY. Or you can get a one-month subscription to InDesign for $32.
posted by wnissen at 4:21 PM on July 12, 2021