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I've been making zines for years now, and during that time I've generally had to figure out how to make more complex zines on my own, as almost all of the resources and templates that are freely available are for simple mini zines. Now that I've gotten a hold of Affinity Publisher and it's starting to get popular as an affordable alternative to InDesign, I decided to make a bunch of templates so people can have an easier time making text-heavy zines with more than a few pages.

If you don't have Affinity Publisher and still want some zine templates, I've also got some for the free desktop publishing program Scribus: https://metaparadox.itch.io/scribus-zine-templates

Note that these templates are for US Letter sized paper!

Here are the available templates:

  • 1 Sheet Quarter Size Portrait Zine (8 pages)
  • 2 Sheet Quarter Size Portrait Zine (16 pages)
  • 3 Sheet Quarter Size Portrait Zine (24 pages)
  • 4 Sheet Quarter Size Portrait Zine (32 pages)
  • 5 Sheet Quarter Size Portrait Zine (40 pages)
  • 6 Sheet Quarter Size Portrait Zine (48 pages)
  • 7 Sheet Quarter Size Portrait Zine (56 pages)
  • 8 Sheet Quarter Size Portrait Zine (64 pages)
  • 9 Sheet Quarter Size Portrait Zine (72 pages)
  • 10 Sheet Quarter Size Portrait Zine (80 pages)
  • 2 Sheet Half Size Zine (8 pages)
  • 3 Sheet Half Size Zine (12 pages)
  • 4 Sheet Half Size Zine (16 pages)
  • 5 Sheet Half Size Zine (20 pages)
  • 6 Sheet Half Size Zine (24 pages)
  • 7 Sheet Half Size Zine (28 pages)
  • 8 Sheet Half Size Zine (32 pages)
  • 9 Sheet Half Size Zine (36 pages)
  • 10 Sheet Half Size Zine (40 pages)
  • 1 Sheet Eighth Size Zine (8 pages)
  • 1 Sheet Eighth Size Zine (16 pages)
  • 2 Sheet Eighth Size Zine (32 pages)
  • 1 Sheet Quarter Size Landscape Zine (8 pages)
  • 2 Sheet Quarter Size Landscape Zine (16 pages)
  • 3 Sheet Quarter Size Landscape Zine (24 pages)
  • 4 Sheet Quarter Size Landscape Zine (32 pages)
  • 5 Sheet Quarter Size Landscape Zine (40 pages)
  • 6 Sheet Quarter Size Landscape Zine (48 pages)
  • 7 Sheet Quarter Size Landscape Zine (56 pages)
  • 8 Sheet Quarter Size Landscape Zine (64 pages)
  • 9 Sheet Quarter Size Landscape Zine (72 pages)
  • 10 Sheet Quarter Size Landscape Zine (80 pages)

So, how do you use these templates?

When you first open up a template, it may look a little overwhelming. There will be text on the front cover of the zine that shows that it's the front cover, and where the text begins, as well as text on the back cover of the zine that shows that it's the back cover, and where the text ends. You'll also see page numbers, and lots of filler text. What you'll want to do is click in any non page number text box, select all of the text (CTRL-A or CMD-A), and delete it, making note of where the front and back cover are. 

Using the text tool, click in the box on the front cover and write your zine's title, then hit enter until you get to the box on page 1. All of the text boxes are connected so that if you continue to type and type and type, you will pass through each box in numerical order until you reach the back cover of the zine. You can write an entire text-heavy zine this way.

If you want to learn to add more than just text to the template, you'll need to look up some tutorials for Affinity Publisher. But these templates will at least show you where each page goes and you can go from there!

How do I print a zine made with a quarter size template?

First, once your zine is complete, you can either export to PDF or print directly from Affinity Publisher. Print at 100%, double sided (long edge for portrait, short edge for landscape). Pick up the stack of pages with the covers facing up. See where the dotted line is? If you have a paper cutter, cut the entire stack of pages along that dotted line. You now have two stacks of paper. Put the stack of paper with the covers on top of the other stack. Then staple or otherwise bind the zine along the solid line. 

If you don't have a paper cutter, use a scissors to cut along each dotted line and match up the pages, then staple or otherwise bind the zine along the solid line.

If you don't have a long arm or saddle stapler, try putting your zine flat on top of foam or a thick piece of fabric or carpet. Open a normal stapler and staple down through the solid line and into the soft material beneath. Use a scissors to fold down the staple ends on the inside of the zine.

How do I print a zine made with a half size template?

First, once your zine is complete, you can either export to PDF or print directly from Affinity Publisher. Print at 100%, double sided (short edge). Pick up the stack of pages with the covers facing up. Then staple or otherwise bind the zine along the solid line. 

If you don't have a long arm or saddle stapler, try putting your zine flat on top of foam or a thick piece of fabric or carpet. Open a normal stapler and staple down through the solid line and into the soft material beneath. Use a scissors to fold down the staple ends on the inside of the zine.

How do I print a zine made with an eighth size template?

First, once your zine is complete, you can either export to PDF or print directly from Affinity Publisher. Print at 100%, double sided (short edge). Pick up the stack of pages with the covers facing up.

If you have a paper cutter, take the stack of paper and cut along the dotted lines. If you don't have a paper cutter, cut along the dotted lines with a scissors. Then match up the pages so the page numbers line up, and use a stapler to staple along the solid line.

The 8 page zine is a special case. Since it's just one side of the page, just print it on that one page at 100%.

There's lots of tutorials for folding and cutting an 8 page eighth size mini zine. You can check out my Let's Make a Zine zine here to learn my method: https://metaparadox.itch.io/lets-make-a-zine

Do I need to credit you?

Nope! These templates are absolutely free! However, I'd appreciate it if you credit me in your zine or link people to these templates! If you feel extra generous, pay what you want for this project on Itch.

Will there be more templates?

If you want to request a specific template be created, feel free to leave a comment and I'll see what I can do!

StatusReleased
CategoryOther
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(41 total ratings)
AuthorMetaparadox
Tagsdiy, Project template, templates, zine, zines, zine-template

Download

Download NowName your own price

Click download now to get access to the following files:

Quarter Size Portrait Zine 8-80 Pages Templates.zip 1 MB
Half Size Zine 8-40 Pages Templates.zip 177 kB
Eighth Size Zine 8-32 Pages Templates.zip 469 kB
Quarter Size Landscape Zine 8-80 Pages Templates.zip 1 MB

Development log

Comments

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(1 edit)

Q: I made a 16 page half sized zine. But when I go to export it as a PDF only half of the pages show up. Am I missing something?

 I like seeing all the pages laid out and the text flow is great, but I'm stuck at the export and I'm afraid I'm going to half to flatten all the pages and copy them into a new doc.

You can see my page layout and the working doc. Interior pages don't show up on export and neither do the covers. I'm following the numbering on the pages in the template.

Also word to the wise - With this kind of text flow it's really difficult to develop different parts of the book at different times, you kind of have to have your book all pre-prepared and it all in pretty linearly. 

I didn't realize that when I got started, I like to jump around and build pages organically at different rates and the text flow wasn't great for that. I ended up ignoring most of it and doing a lot of copying and pasting. 

If I needed to layout a text heavy book that was already processed it would be an absolute godsend. 

I'm not sure what's going on here. I think I'd need to see your export settings

Thanks for the response. I think I screwed up somehow. *user error* I did figure out how to export all of the pages but The two pages  (1 & 8 of the book) were still missing. It must have happened somehow when I was importing the template. Ugh.  I have imported the same template and it works fine. I'm flattening through PDF and copying and Pasting. So it goes...

These really helped me out, thank you so much for these! Wonderful work and great tutorials!

(+1)

One additional suggestion: it'd be great if the instructions on this page could be included as a document in the zip file of templates itself! Thanks again!

omg!!! i havent tried these yet but thank you so much!! i was thinking like 2? months ago about seeing if i could use affinity publisher for zines but not being very proficient, i just felt confused! this seems like a great place to even just start! thank you!!

Compliments to the chef

Thank you so much for these!

Thank you, these are a great start.