[Brandi Morlen]

Hi Courtney,
It sounds like you have a lot to undertake here. I think first things first you need to ask either your Yearbook advisor or the Printer what the size of the magazine is, or needs, to be. Because magazines come in all sizes. But I will try to help answer your questions the best I can.

1. All of the steps to set up the cover are detailed, not hard, just lengthy to type here. However, the way I would set it up would be to create the cover as a separate InDesign file. You will need to set this up as facing pages. In the center (aka gutter) is where you can design your spine.

2. As mentioned before a magazine can be any size; however, when you are referring to the part the printer cuts off that is called a bleed. When you create a new document the panel that is first displayed allows you to set this up. Typically you can use 0.125 on all 4 sides and that should be sufficient. Once you have your blank document open you will notice the bleed is indicated by the red line surrounding the pages. Any graphic that will “bleed” off the page of your magazine once cut need to extend to this line. DO NOT let any text or important parts of your image bleed of the page. Keep your text within a margin inside your page document.

3. As for images for print you should always make sure they CMYK, not RGB, and that they are 300dpi. You can adjust this in photoshop. In photoshop view your image at 100% and that will give you a good indication of how your photo will look. Keep in mind colors will vary slightly from on screen to printed paper.

4. As for a barcode, you can purchase a stock photo of one from istock.com or another stock photo website, find one on google, or create on yourself using illustrator or photoshop. You would insert it like any other image and then just type in your ISSN number.

I hope this helps; however, what you are undertaking is a lot of work and I may not have been able to get it all in here. Good Luck!