Creating books

Books are created and their contents managed using the Books panel, on which you can add, remove, replace and rearrange chapters.

Managing a book's chapters

Each document added to a book may represent a literal chapter of your publication but it doesn't have to. How your publication is divided into discrete documents is your decision, which may be influenced by your production workflow.

Multiple chapters can be simultaneously added or removed. One chapter at a time can be replaced or rearranged.

Replacing chapters can help in a collaborative workflow, e.g. upon receiving a version that has been copy-edited.

Stray pages

For books that contain facing-page spreads, there are two behaviors that determine how stray pages—single pages at the end or start of consecutive chapters—are handled.

Where one chapter ends with a left page and the next chapter starts on a right page, Affinity can merge these stray pages into a facing-pages spread.

Where only one stray page exists between consecutive chapters, Affinity can 'pad' the document, i.e. insert pages, in order to maintain facing-pages spreads.

Panel Preferences To create a book:

Do one of the following:

Add Chapter To add chapters:
  1. On the Books panel, click Add Chapter.
  2. Browse to and select one or more Affinity Publisher documents (saved with the .afpub file extension).
  3. Click Open.
Remove Chapter To remove chapters:
  1. On the Books panel, select one or more chapters.
  2. Click Remove Chapter.
  3. Browse to and select an Affinity Publisher document, then click Open.
Panel Preferences To replace a chapter:
  1. On the Books panel, select a chapter.
  2. From the Panel Preferences menu, select Replace Chapter.
To change chapter order:
  1. On the Books panel, drag a chapter up or down the list.
  2. When you see a blue line at the desired position, drop the chapter.
Panel Preferences To allow consecutive stray pages to be merged into facing-page spreads:
  1. On the Books panel, open the Panel Preferences menu.
  2. From the Stray Pages submenu, ensure Merge Where Possible is checked.
Panel Preferences To allow padding so that single stray pages become facing-page spreads:
  1. On the Books panel, open the Panel Preferences menu.
  2. From the Stray Pages submenu, ensure Pad is checked.

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