How do I set up a perfect bound cover?

Your cover is one spread, plus an optional second page

Unlike your inside pages, which come as single pages, your cover is supplied as a spread. It’s exactly how your finished book would look if you opened the cover and laid it flat on the desk. The cover file has one or two pages:

Work out your spine width first

The width of the spine depends on how many pages your book has. It’s simple: the more pages, the thicker the spine needs to be to wrap round them all. So finish your inside pages before you design the cover, because if the page count changes, the spine gets bigger or smaller.

Pop your page count and inside paper into our spine calculator and you’ll have the spine width in seconds, plus the exact cover spread and inside page sizes. It covers every stock from 120gsm uncoated to 170gsm gloss, from 28 to 400 pages. If your pages or paper aren’t covered, email hello@exwhyzed.com and we’ll advise on the right size.

Short on time? Use a template, or watch it done

We’ve made finished cover templates for A4, A5 portrait, A5 landscape and 210 × 210mm books, with the most common spine widths. Choose the one for your book and spine size, open it in InDesign, add and style your artwork, then jump to the export settings.

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Set Up an A4 Perfect Bound Book Cover Template6.3K views · Ex Why Zed on YouTube

Once you know your spine size, this tutorial walks you through preparing an A4 cover in InDesign. Yes, that does mean you can skip the rest of this page.

Set up the InDesign document

Our example is an A4 book with a 4mm spine. Swap in your own measurements as you go.

1. 1
   Start a new documentChoose File → New → Document. Type 2 in Number of Pages and untick Facing Pages.
2. 2
   Width: back + front + spineThis is the only tricky bit, and it’s where you need your spine size. An A4 book is 210mm wide, so add the back cover (210mm), the front cover (210mm) and the spine: 210 + 210 + 4 = 424mm.
3. 3
   Height: just your book’s height297mm for A4, 210mm for A5.
4. 4
   Two columns, with the gutter as your spineSet Columns to 2 and the Column Gutter to your spine width, 4mm in this example. The gap between the columns now marks your spine.
5. 5
   Margins 0, bleed 3mmSet all four Margins to 0 and type 3mm into all four Bleed boxes. Slug can stay at 0. Click Create (OK in older versions).
6. 6
   Check the layoutYour new file shows the back cover on the left, the spine through the centre and the front cover on the right, exactly as expected.

Add the spine fold guides, then lock them

Next come two dashed lines that show where the spine folds. They run straight down the spine guides on your file and show our finishing team exactly where to fold your cover after it’s printed. Then a white box hides them on the page, so they never appear on your finished books.

1. 1
   Draw a lineChoose the Line Tool. Click on the page and, holding Shift, drag out a vertical line. Its length and position don’t matter yet.
2. 2
   Position it on the first foldIn the Control panel along the top, click the top-middle square of the reference point (the icon with nine tiny boxes). Set X to your book’s width: 210mm for A4, 148mm for A5. Set Y to −15mm, and L (the length) to your book’s height plus 30mm: 327mm for A4, 240mm for A5. Press Return or Tab, and the line now runs from 15mm above the page to 15mm below it.
3. 3
   Make it dashedIn the Stroke panel, choose the dashed line type and set the weight to 0.5pt. Press Return or Tab again.
4. 4
   Copy it onto the second foldWith the line still selected, choose Edit → Step and Repeat (Alt-Cmd-U on a Mac). Set the count to 1, Vertical to 0 and Horizontal to your spine width. Click Preview to check, then OK. You now have two dashed lines sitting over the column guides.
5. 5
   Block them out with a white boxChoose the Rectangle Frame Tool and drag a box from the top-left corner of the bleed to the bottom-right, so it spans the whole page. Fill it with white (0/0/0/0) in the Colour or Swatches panel.
6. 6
   Copy and lockSelect everything (Cmd-A), copy it (Cmd-C), then choose Object → Lock (Cmd-L). The lines and box are now copied for page 2, and locked on page 1 so they sit happily in the background while you add your artwork.
7. 7
   Repeat on page 2Scroll down to page 2 and choose Edit → Paste in Place, so everything lands in exactly the same position as on page 1. If you paste with Cmd-V instead, drag it all to the top left until the white box sits neatly in the corner of the bleed. Select all and lock again.
8. 8
   Save itAll done. Save your file, and you have your own cover template.

Add your artwork and inside covers

Now the fun part. In our example we dropped in a full-bleed photo of Yankee Stadium. You might want a full wrap image like this for maximum impact, or just an image on the front cover with some text. Run anything that touches the edge out to the 3mm bleed line, and save your file once you’re happy.

Page 2 is for your inside covers: inside front on the left, inside back on the right. If they’re printed, design them here. If they’re blank, leave page 2 out and send a 1-page PDF.

Export your cover as a print-ready PDF

We can’t print from an InDesign file, so export the artwork to a PDF.

1. 1
   Choose File → Export (Cmd-E), type your file name, choose Adobe PDF (Print) and click Save.
2. 2
   In the Export Adobe PDF box, choose PDF/X-1a:2001 from the Adobe PDF Preset menu at the top.
3. 3
   Click Marks and Bleeds on the left and tick Crop Marks.
4. 4
   Untick Use Document Bleed Settings, then type 3mm for Left and Right, and 10mm for Top and Bottom.
5. 5
   Click Export, and send us the file.

Your cover checklist

• One file for the cover: back cover, spine and front cover on one page, plus a page 2 if your inside covers are printed.
• Artwork at the same size your book will be printed, with the spine width from our spine calculator, checked after your page count is final.
• 3mm bleed on the four outside edges, and never around the spine.
• Exported as a high-res PDF (PDF/X-1a) with crop marks.
• Nothing important within 10–12mm of the spine on your first and last inside pages, or 6–8mm on the rest.
• Inside pages sent separately, as a PDF of single pages that starts with the first right-hand inside page and follows in reading order. Designed them as spreads? Our free Spread Splitter sorts that in about a minute.

Four mistakes that send covers back