Making an A4 template with an 8 x 8 square in it

View fullsize

Dual-purpose template: A4 and 8x8-inch square

I spent the afternoon making this template. It’s an A4-sized template that contains a centered 8x8 inch square. Everything that goes into the print version, which is 8x8-inches, has to fit into the square. The background will extend into the A4 rectangle. The idea is that the 8x8 square will be fitted into the InDesign print template and the entire A4 content will go into the ePub version.

I made this template to deal with the problem I ran into in my first two books. I didn’t plan ahead for the different aspect ratios of the print and ePub versions and ended up with pictures of random aspects. I spent many hours repainting the images to get them ready for publication. It was a real pain. This time I’m going to keep all of the important content in the square. However, I still have to paint to the edges of the A4 pages, which will fit nicely into the ePub pages.