HOW DO I... account for gutter?

[LizardInk]

Hi all!

While i've been making maps for a while, I've only just begun to get into maps for inclusion in books, and so am learning all I can about proper book-map formatting. My main query is--GUTTERS???

For those of you with experience here, do you account for the gutter from the start of the design process? What info do you need to do that? And how do you format the final image with a gutter in mind? I feel like these are probably stupid questions, but I've been unable to get good answers from the Google. So please forgive my ignorance!

Any and all advice will be MASSIVELY appreciated! Thank you!!

[Azélor]

You mean the gutters on the roofs? I just need to make sure since English is my second language.

Unless I only have a few buildings, I never include gutters because it would be too small and people wouldn't even notice it
or might not recognize what it is.

[Larb]

I believe she means gutter as in the middle of a page spread - where it folds.

I've never had to spread a map across two pages before. I guess you'd have to divide it in two. I suppose if you wanted to avoid blank space down the gutter, you could have it so the left and right is partly duplicated where it meets in the middle.

[Falconius]

I also thought roof gutters. Never knew it was also used for the area where two pages meet, you learn somthing new every day.

What I've seen is that many people give a fair bit of margin so there is actually blank space down there in the utter. Alternatively you could do as Larb suggests and just do a bit of overlap duplication. J.Edward had some maps printed over two pages I wonder how they approached it.

[Larb]

The gutter margin size is something you usually set when you first set up your document. I only do product catalogs irl though, not atlases. =P

[LizardInk]

Yes--I meant the pagefold gutter!

[LizardInk]

The gutter margin size is something you usually set when you first set up your document. I only do product catalogs irl though, not atlases. =P

That's what I'm afraid of--because I don't know those margins. I've seen some maps be split into two separate images and placed on facing pages, which isn't ideal either IMO, but would save anything from being swallowed by the fold.

[ThomasR]

I recently did a two page spread map. Dunno how it's handled by the printers but I allowed for empty space on the left and right part so that they can either cut in the middle and separate the two halves or cut and separate and add a redundancy.

[LizardInk]

I recently did a two page spread map. Dunno how it's handled by the printers but I allowed for empty space on the left and right part so that they can either cut in the middle and separate the two halves or cut and separate and add a redundancy.

Thanks for the reply! So sounds like you really left it up to the printer, and just gave them that option. That seems like a good middle-of-the-road approach, in cases where the gutter isn't specified.

[Larb]

If you're just doing the map and not the book then it's not really something you need to worry about. That's the artworker/printer's job. You just need to provide a high resolution image of your map which I assume you'll already have been given rough dimensions for.