Hey, Kids – Wanna Drive Yourself Insane?

So this time around I decided to format the hardcopy version of my zine as a digest.

For those of you unfamiliar with zining, a digest-formatted zine is when you take 8 1/2 X 11 paper, turn it sideways, fold it down the middle, and staple it along the crease. It looks neat but there’s a downside. How to you get the pages in the proper sequence?

Four sheets folded convert into an 8 page edition. Not only do the pages have to be out of sequence to be in the proper sequence, you have to make sure each double-side sheet has the correct pages on each side. For eXample, this means sheet A has to have pages 8 and 1 on one side, then pages 2 and 7 on the flip side.

I wanted to do all the formatting on my computer instead of printing out the pages in sequence, then taping or gluing them down as I did in the past. I think I’ve figured it all out, no mess lying around my desk, paper trimmings, but what an eXcruciating HEADACHE I got! Now I have to make sure to print everything in the right sequence or I’ll have a fatal migraine.

The upside to the digest format: I can address each copy on my computer with a plain sheet of paper instead of messing around with envelopes. Word allows me to type in addresses sideways, perfect for the format.