On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 9:06 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:

Am 2008-03-25 um 01:51 schrieb Joel C. Salomon:

...

In other words, you want large inner margins and small outer margins.

...

However, the standard behaviour seems to be the opposite. For very good reason. When a two-page spread is laid flat, it usually looks best if the outer margins are both approximately equal in width to the combined inner margins. The default layout takes that into account.

While the binding of a book does "eat" some of the inner margin, it's probably less than you think (IIRC, from ¼ʺ to ½ʺ, depending on the binding method), and often the print shop can correct for that. (If you need to be exact, measure against a book bound where your book will be and in the same method.)

It depends on the binding method.

The traditional margin sizes are only good for thread-stitching. If your book's bound threadless (perfect binding, Wire-O etc.) your inner margins need to be bigger (not always bigger as the outer, but at least bigger than the traditional measures).

It's not only that the bookbinder mills away a few millimeters of the page - you can't open a adhesive bound book as much as a thread- stitched, so you need a wider gutter to be able to read the book without destroying the binding. (Or in case of spiral binding the holes for the wire need enough space.)

And if you need to send your PDF print-ready to your printshop (maybe books-on-demand maker), there's nobody else who will correct for that.

Insofar the OP's question is well justified. Even if he could have found the answer easily himself:

Of course you can define your page layout at will, see http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Layout

Well, the information here does not solv my problem completely. The thing is, that while I do want the inner margins to be larger than the outer, my description also implies that the odd numbered pages are right pages, which is sometimes a requirement for printed books. I have tried to define the margins following the Layout section of the manual, but I can't figure out how to change that the odd pages are assumed to be left pages. -Peter

On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 8:12 AM, Wolfgang Schuster wrote:

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:55 PM, Peter I. Hansen wrote:

...

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 9:06 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:

...

Am 2008-03-25 um 01:51 schrieb Joel C. Salomon:

...

In other words, you want large inner margins and small outer margins.

...

However, the standard behaviour seems to be the opposite. For very good reason. When a two-page spread is laid flat, it usually looks best if the outer margins are both approximately equal in width to the combined inner margins. The default layout takes that into account.

While the binding of a book does "eat" some of the inner margin, it's probably less than you think (IIRC, from ¼ʺ to ½ʺ, depending on the binding method), and often the print shop can correct for that. (If you need to be exact, measure against a book bound where your book will be and in the same method.)

It depends on the binding method.

The traditional margin sizes are only good for thread-stitching. If your book's bound threadless (perfect binding, Wire-O etc.) your inner margins need to be bigger (not always bigger as the outer, but at least bigger than the traditional measures).

It's not only that the bookbinder mills away a few millimeters of the page - you can't open a adhesive bound book as much as a thread- stitched, so you need a wider gutter to be able to read the book without destroying the binding. (Or in case of spiral binding the holes for the wire need enough space.)

And if you need to send your PDF print-ready to your printshop (maybe books-on-demand maker), there's nobody else who will correct for that.

Insofar the OP's question is well justified. Even if he could have found the answer easily himself:

Of course you can define your page layout at will, see http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Layout

Well, the information here does not solv my problem completely. The thing is, that while I do want the inner margins to be larger than the outer, my description also implies that the odd numbered pages are right pages, which is sometimes a requirement for printed books. I have tried to define the margins following the Layout section of the manual, but I can't figure out how to change that the odd pages are assumed to be left pages.

\setuppagenumbering[alternative=doublesided]

\setuplayout [backspace=4cm, cutspace=2cm, width=fit]

%\setuplayout % [backspace=4cm, % width=15cm]

\starttext \dorecurse{100}{\input knuth\par} \stoptext

Thanks Wolfgang, this works. -Peter