How to Make a Magazine

I am often asked what is involved in producing an online magazine and how it is different to a printed version, so I thought this month I would go over the processes that we go through.

When we first started to produce a magazine, back in 2006, we used Adobe Indesign, but when Adobe moved onto a subscription model it became just too expensive and we decided enough was enough. Now, we use Affinity Publisher to design and lay out the magazine, and also use it to design most of the advertisements, in conjunction with Affinity Photo and Design.

When the finished product is to be a printed magazine, it pays to choose the number of pages that suits the printing process. The printer we used in Spain had machines that fitted 8 pages to a single sheet of paper so multiples of 8 pages actually came out cheaper for us.

With a magazine destined to only be read online, then choosing to have an even number of pages gives you the best results, but there is no difference in cost as the size increases.

A major factor with an online magazine is the font type and size. People read this magazine using smartphones, tablets and computers. Viewing on a tablet one page at a time is about the same as viewing a two page spread on the average computer monitor, but a smartphone screen is, of course, very much smaller. So we need to choose fonts carefully so they can be read on all devices. Arial font is easily read online, and a size of 12 points seems to be the best compromise. 11 points is perhaps better on a large screen, but a little too small for a smartphone.

Eventually, the magazine, with its advertisements and articles, is ready and it is then exported as a pdf format file.The choice of image quality is important here because whereas a printed copy will need a high resolution, the larger file size this produces will make download times too long for an online magazine so a slightly lower resolution is used.

The pdf is then uploaded to Issuu and Pubhtml5 ready to go live. Issuu also offer a “stories” option where each article can be turned into a standalone story which you can very easily read on a small screen device. This process is quite time consuming, but we feel it is worth doing as it gives another option for our readers.

Finally, our website gets changed to include the links to the new magazine, and we begin the facebook posts, and the newsletter sending.