Inside / Outside margins appear swapped in PDF for print

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

I’m trying to set up a book for print. But the PDF that Scrivener compiles looks like the inside and outside margins are swapped.

I really boosted the setting to make it obvious

[attachment=1]Screen Shot 2020-09-22 at 12.31.33 AM.png[/attachment]

Here’s the PDF it creates. The inside margin is small, but the outside margin is huge.

2

It’s hard to tell if it’s wrong from the screenshot without knowing what pages came before, but I think it’s probably correct. “Inside” will be the left margin on recto pages and the right margin on verso pages. But remember that the standard is for the first page of a book to be a right page (recto). In two-up mode in Preview, however, recto pages may appear on the left (the opposite of their intended published placement), which could explain the effect you are seeing. Consider:

  • First printed page - the first page in a book is always a recto page (so, “inside margin” will be left).
  • Second printed page - a verso page, with “inside margin” on right.
  • Third printed page - a recto page, with “inside margin” on left.

If you put those pages side-by-side starting with the first printed page on the left, however, you will get the opposite result of what you want.

All the best,
Keith

3

Ah! Got it. I wasn’t viewing it right inside of Acrobat Reader… sorry. :blush:

But, I do have another question. I’d like my h1’s to alternate alignment so that they’re right-aligned on recto pages and left-aligned on verso pages.

Any way to do that?

4

I’m afraid there’s no way of doing that, because the text doesn’t know which page it’s going to end up on (the text is created and then laid out in the pages).

All the best,
Keith