In the works
I’m working on a zine about my favorite writing advice. It’s a quarter-page zine, meaning four zine pages will fit on one sheet of paper.
The most complicated part of making quarter-page zines is the print layout.
If you make the zine pages in order, you have to reshuffle them so that they print in the correct sequence.
If you don’t want to reshuffle, then you have to make the pages out of order. That may or may not work for you.
It doesn’t work for me.
So what I’m doing is working in two Canva files. One is my “working file” and sized for the finished zine page size (4.25 inches x 5.5 inches). When I finalize the pages, I’m going to export them as images.
Then the second Canva file is my “print file” and sized at 8.5 inches x 11 inches. I added guides to divide the pages into quarters. I labeled the page numbers so that the zine will print in the correct sequence. Then I’ll add each zine page (as an image) to this print file.
It’s not necessarily a difficult process, but it does feel like extra steps and extra time. And I haven’t been able to simplify from here.
I should mention I did try downloading all the zine pages as a PDF and then printing 4 pages per sheet. This printing method leaves gaps between each page, so there’s extra white space around each page. What I’m doing in the print file in Canva doesn’t leave any gaps.