PerfectBoundCover

John Culleton's script and explanations on how to create perfect bound covers.

With substantial help from my fellow listmates I have created a script for creating perfect bound book covers on Scribus 1.44 through 1.5.0.

The script is named "softcover_inch.py". The script requires the entry of: 1. Number of interior pages 2. PPI (pages per inch) for the interior paper used. 3. Finished page width in inches. 4. Finished page height in inches 5. Cover paper thickness. This is the caliper of the cover paper plus an additional distance that together represent the extra space factor to make up for the folding of the cover at each side of the spine. This factor is multiplied by two and the added to the spine width figured by using parameters 1. and 2. above.

Five small windows are displayed in sequence, each accepting one of the factors above.

After the last of these five numbers is successfully entered the current document is changed to a cover template complete with all three panels and a bleed of 0.125 inch all around the periphery. A margin limit of 0.375 inch is indicated by a blue line all around the edges of the document. This margin consist of the bleed allowance (0.125 inch) plus a safety margin required by most printers of 0.250 inch. Items on the cover such as text, barcodes and decorative figures should be kept within this margin. There are no safety margin lines for the spine, but adequate clearances prescribed by the printer should be observed,

There are also five vertical guides. Two near the center delineate the sides of the spine; the other three bisect each of the three panels of the cover as an aid in centering text blocks etc.

The script softcover_inch.py can be downloaded here: htp://www.wexfordpress.com/softcover_inch.py.

Hopefully it will be included in the Scribus distribution at some point. A metric version of the script presents additional problems, so as the author of the present script I have left that to those more knowledgeable of the conventions in countries using the metric system.

softcover_inch.py

The full text of the script follows:

note continuation of the line beginning scribus.newDocument... on next line

#!/usr/bin/env python

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import scribus

import math

P = scribus.valueDialog('Book Cover Calculator','Enter Number of pages')

P = float(P)

G = scribus.valueDialog('Book Cover Calculator','Enter Paper Weight (ppi)')

G = float(G)

W = scribus.valueDialog('Book Cover Calculator','Enter Page Width')

W = float(W)

H = scribus.valueDialog('Book Cover Calculator','Enter Page Height')

H = float(H)

R = scribus.valueDialog('Book Cover Calculator','Enter Cover Paper thickness')

R = float(R)

W1 = W

WW = W + 0.125

S = P/G + (R*2)

S = float(S)

W = W + S + W + 0.25

H = H + 0.25

scribus.newDocument((W,H), (0.375, 0.375, 0.375, 0.375), scribus.PORTRAIT, 1,scribus.UNIT_INCHES,scribus.PAGE_1, 0, 1) 

scribus.setVGuides([WW, (W1/2 + 0.125), (WW + S/2), (WW + S), (WW + S + W1/2)])