Trying to view docs like a book

[alphabravo]

I am in the process of writing a sort of manual. I will be printing it book style, bound on the edge. What I am hoping to do is see the "book" like I would when it is printed. So, the odd pages would be on the left, and even on the right. I figured I was looking for print layout view, but that is skipping some pages, and making the order kind of messed up as far as viewing even and odd pages goes. It seems like it skipped some blank pages where I used a section break pr page break to next even/odd page. So, is there something I am missing, or is word not really able to do what I am looking for? Thanks for the help, I appreciate it!

[alphabravo]

Originally Posted by hitech

You can set the page setup and view their print payout to see how it will look after print.

Well, I clicked the page setup, but it didn't really give me any options to do anything but setup for printing. I am viewing the print layout view now, with two pages at a time. I would think that this should give me what I want. The problem I see is, the cover is counted as page 1, and it starts on the left. The cover is page 1, but needs to start on the right for my payout to look like it will when printed and bound. Does that make sense? Also, it skips some page numbers of blank pages. I'm really confused!

[BrazzellMarketing]

One possible Word answer: Keep your cover as separate file. This also helps when you go to print if you want to print the cover on a different paper stock. After this is done, viewing individual pages as if they were bound in a book should be relatively easy. My preference would be to get to the zoom dialog box. I like to click the little percentage view number at the bottom right of my Word window. In that box, you can experiment with different percentage views until you find the one that will only allow two pages to appear at once. On my screen, it's 60%.

Now for the news you probably won't like. Word is primarily for letters and reports. When you get into booklets, Publisher has more options that allow you better flexibility associated with these types of issues. For instance, Publisher would have asked you up front if you want to view page 1 as a cover or as an internal page and then displayed that project to you that way until you say otherwise. If you find that you are making booklets more often, it may be worth learning Publisher.

[alphabravo]

Originally Posted by BrazzellMarketing

One possible Word answer: Keep your cover as separate file. This also helps when you go to print if you want to print the cover on a different paper stock. After this is done, viewing individual pages as if they were bound in a book should be relatively easy. My preference would be to get to the zoom dialog box. I like to click the little percentage view number at the bottom right of my Word window. In that box, you can experiment with different percentage views until you find the one that will only allow two pages to appear at once. On my screen, it's 60%.

Now for the news you probably won't like. Word is primarily for letters and reports. When you get into booklets, Publisher has more options that allow you better flexibility associated with these types of issues. For instance, Publisher would have asked you up front if you want to view page 1 as a cover or as an internal page and then displayed that project to you that way until you say otherwise. If you find that you are making booklets more often, it may be worth learning Publisher.

Good idea to keep the cover as a separate page, that might help. I think you're right though, the problem is that word isn't really built for this. I do plan on making quite few of these projects, but they are for internal use for my business. So, since I'm not exactly making money from this or anything, I'm not sure I'd be after buying more software to do this. I'm going to try and make the cover page separate like you recommended and take it from there. Thanks for the tip, I appreciate it.