In the last tutorial of the Design a Digital Planner in Affinity Suite tutorial series, we started building a template for our Full Digi Planner PDF project. We created our first master page for the Front Cover and saved the document as a working .afpub file. Now we will use this Front Cover master page to create a second master page for the back cover design. You can download the Back Cover Placeholder .png file using the link below. In this tutorial, you will learn the following.

• Maintain design elements between master pages
• Add a new document page to the Pages panel and apply a master page

Back Cover Placeholder

Back Cover Design

Your back cover design can be the same as the front cover or a new coordinated design. In many examples, I've seen designers place their logo at the bottom of the back cover and include their web site or online shoppe address.

Let's Get Started

1. Open your Full Digi Planner PDF .afpub working file.

Let's duplicate the Front Cover master page as the first step for creating the Back Cover master. This will maintain the design elements on the Front Cover over to our Back Cover master page. Because we used the Symbols feature for the binder rings, they will automatically be synced together on both covers. But we will make a few changes to the Back Cover master. We need to move the cover design to the left edge, place the planner rings against the right edge of the Canvas and reverse the planner rings. Remember that we are now working on master pages and not on document pages.


2. In the Master Pages panel, click on the Add Master icon at the top of the panel. Keep the settings in the Add Master window and click OK (see screenshot).


3. Double-click the thumbnail for the new Master B, to load that master page in to the canvas. Now right-click on the empty thumbnail for Master B and choose Apply Master from the pop-up menu. Set the following values in the Apply Master window (see screenshot).

Apply Master: Front Cover
Replace Existing: Checked

You should see the content from the Front Cover master appear in the empty canvas. In the Layers panel, we have a group layer named (Front Cover) (see screenshot).


4. Rename the Master B thumbnail to Back Cover (see screenshot).

Next, let's make those changes in the Layers panel for the Back Cover master page.


5. Select the Left Side Binder Rings group layer and rename the layer Right Side Binder Rings (see screenshot). In the Transform panel, click on the upper left corner of the Anchor Point Selector. Set the X value to 1972 pixels to move the rings to the right edge (see screenshot).

Now, we can flip the rings horizontally.


6. With the Right Side Binder Rings group layer still selected, click the Flip Horizontal icon in the Toolbar (see screenshot).

Now we need to reposition the two Shadow layers, by changing the X values in the Transform panel.


7. In the Layers panel, select the Shadow 2 layer and set the X value to Zero. Select the Shadow layer and set the X value to 2068 pixels.


8. In the Layers panel, rename the Front Cover Placeholder layer to Back Cover Placeholder.


9. Set the X value to Zero to move the Back Cover Placeholder to the left edge.

Our next task is to replace the Front Cover Placeholder .png with the Back Cover Placeholder .png.


10. In the Layers panel, select the Back Cover Placeholder layer. Click the Properties button from the Context Toolbar and choose the first option, Scale to Max Fit. Click the Replace Image button in the Context toolbar. In the pop-up window, select the Back Cover Placeholder .png. Click Open to replace the .png file.


11. Click File - Save to save our changes to the working .afpub file.

In the next few tutorials, we will create a Master Page for the Inside Page layout, organize the planner pages and add the hyperlinked tabs for each section of the planner.

Design a Digital Planner in Affinity Suite - Tutorial Series Index
More Affinity Suite Tutorials
Screenshots used by permission of Serif (Europe) Ltd. This article is not endorsed by Serif Ltd.

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