The Media section is where you define the paper you’re going to print on. You can set up one or more media types — for example, if you want coloured card for the cover of your booklet and plain paper for the inside pages. The left side shows your list of media types; the right side shows the detail editor for the selected one.
The main reason you would define multiple media types within an Octavo document is so that Octavo builds you separate print jobs for each media. (If you use a different media for the cover of your booklet only, then Octavo can tell your printer to switch paper trays automatically, but otherwise you’ll have to run each job separately. This is a limitation of Apple’s printing system.)
Once you’ve created the relevant media, you can apply it to pages in a few ways:
Each of the above changes the media for the page(s) selected in the Page Strip.
Octavo enforces that the media assignment of your pages is consistent. For instance, if you’re making a saddle stitched booklet, then the first two and last two pages are printed on the same sheet of paper, therefore they must share a media.
When changing media for a page, if it would cause a consistency error, Octavo gives you a choice:
When inserting blanks, Octavo tries to keep the number of blanks required to a minimum, but this is sometimes difficult to achieve. If you want perfect control over blank pages, insert the ones you want manually and use the Apply to All Pages option when assigning media.
The list on the left shows all the media types in your document. Use the + and − buttons to add or remove media types. One of the media types is the primary one, used for any pages that don’t have a specific media type assigned.
A name for this media type (e.g., “Cover card” or “Body paper”). This is for your reference — it shows up in the media chooser on the Placement tab.
Choose a printer from the dropdown. Select Generic if you don’t want to tie this media to a specific printer, or choose one of your available printers. Selecting a real printer lets Octavo show you the printer’s actual margin limits. It is always recommended to select a real printer if possible.
Choose a paper tray to print from. Auto Select lets the printer decide, or you can pick a specific tray if your printer has more than one.
Pick a paper size from the preset dropdown — if you’ve selected a printer, this will list your printer’s reported paper sizes, alternatively Octavo will offer some common paper sizes.
If you choose Custom, width and height fields appear for you to enter your own dimensions. If you try to enter some dimensions that are outside the sizes that the selected printer supports, the values will be rejected.
Some printers offer multiple versions of the same page size, but with differently sized printer margins. The reason for this might be, that the printer is capable of printing edge-to-edge (a.k.a. “Full Bleed” or “Borderless”), but it is slower at printing when doing so. This offers the user the choice.
This setting only shows up if you have a printer selected, and that printer and paper size combination offer multiple margin options.
The weight of the paper. This is for your reference and for labelling the print jobs.
On a few printer brands such as Oki, there may be an additional weight menu as well as the text field. If the menu is present, this is a setting that your printer will take into account when configuring the print job.
Choose a stock type from the dropdown (e.g., plain, recycled, glossy). This is passed to your printer when configuring the print job.
Choose a paper colour from the dropdown. This is for your reference, it doesn’t functionally change anything in Octavo nor with your print job.
A colour well that sets the colour of the indicator stripe shown in the page strip for pages using this media type. Handy for quickly seeing which pages use which paper.
A button that makes this media type the primary one. This button only appears when the selected media type isn’t already the primary.
Assigns this media type to whichever pages are currently selected in the page strip.