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How to Create a Two Sided Graphic

Creating Two-Sided Graphic Projects
or How Dyslexia Can be a Blessing

Inside Card Text

Take her with you where you go,
Rain or wind, ice or snow.
You’ll be blessed because you shared;
Because you loved, because you cared.

Back Card Text

All proceeds from the sale of this project
go to Parkinson’s Research.
Thank you.

Have you tried to create computer greeting cards or product cards from scratch and been puzzled as to how to position things? Does the front of the card always seem to come out backwards or upside down, no matter how you feed the paper or orient your graphic?

Perhaps this tutorial will help you get past these hurdles and on your way to designing all types and sizes of original cards.

With a two-sided project, you need to figure out how the paper feeds through your printer, as well as how your software program orients your design before sending it.

It tickles me to realize that the ability to do this is not a natural skill shared by the majority, because it gave me such problems in my early learning years. (Would you believe I flunked kindergarten?!)

Since I have a form of dyslexia, I had a hard time learning to read and write. I couldn’t understand why a certain form oriented one way was called “M”, while when oriented another way it was called “W”.

Turned other ways, it looked liked what people called “E” or “3”. They were all the same form to me. After a lot of remedial reading classes, one-on-one tutoring and hard work, I finally got the concept.

The silver lining, which I didn’t realize until adulthood, is that I can easily read and write backwards and upside down! It comes in handy at times – like when I want to read something I’m not supposed to – or when I want to create a two-sided graphic.

The example here was inspired by a reader who was struggling to make little hang cards for a product she makes for charity. This hang card is an advanced two-sided graphics project, so if you can get through this (and I have no doubt that you can), you’ll be able to design all types of greeting or note cards and two-sided brochures, whether half-fold or triple-fold or whatever!

[If you feel you need to start with a beginner’s project, here are instructions on designing a two-sided half-fold card of any dimension.]

The illustration above shows the most efficient way to lay out the hang card. We wanted a card of about 2 by 2 ¾ inches when folded. Using landscape orientation, each 8 ½ by 11-inch sheet will yield 8 cards.

The outside of the card is designed once, then grouped and copied to make four on the left side of the page. The inside bottom copy is written, then copied to make four on the right side of the page.

After printing on one side, you need to reinsert the printed pages into your printer to print the other side.

This is where you need to figure out how the paper runs through your printer and how your software sends the design. For example, my printer feeds paper from a bottom tray and prints on the underside of paper it grabs from the tray.

My graphics software starts printing from the left side of a landscape page and from the top of a portrait page.

Printer Setup

If this isn’t clear to you, try this.

Right click on the illustration above, select Copy. Then paste it into a landscape page in your graphics or word processing software. Minimize the margins. You want the image to be approximately 8 ¼ by 10 ¾ inches.

Click on a corner and stretch the image to fill the sheet. Then try printing both sides until you figure out how to get the correct result.

The Upside Down Part

Now we get to the upside-down writing part. To visualize this, it might be helpful to take a folded greeting or note card which has landscape orientation, open it and lay it flat with the outside facing you.

Notice how the front design is right side up, but the back logo is upside down. Look at the illustration above and you will see the same thing on the left half of the page. The cover design with “Amy’s Angels” is right side up, while the printing that will be on the back of the card has been flipped upside down. I’ll explain how to do that a bit later.

Now flip the card over to view the inside. The writing on the bottom half is right side up. However since you will rotate the paper to reinsert it into your printer, rotate the card so that the writing is upside down. Look at the left half of the page in the illustration. The inside printing is oriented exactly the same way.

How to Flip Graphics and Text

If the area you want to flip upside down has more than one graphic component, group them together first. Position your cursor outside of the area. Click and hold down while you lasso the desired components. Right click and select Group.

Most graphics programs have two ways to rotate or flip an object. For flipping text, I prefer to use Arrange on the tool bar and select Flip Both. The other way is to move the mouse around the perimeter of the image until you find the curved arrow. Click/Hold on the arrow and you can manually rotate the image.

How to Position Multiple Copies on a Page

If you’re wondering how to position the individual cards precisely – especially important in a two-sided project – click on the link above and read the section on Guidelines.

You might also want to familiarize yourself with the Position option. If you want to know, with mathematical precision, where an object is on the page, right click on it and select Position, then More. A pop-up will appear and give you the horizontal and vertical coordinates.

To make the example easy, let’s say the object is at 0.0 horizontal and 0.0 vertical. If you copy and paste the object and want to position the copy exactly 2 inches below the original, right click and select Position/More to view the coordinates. Leave the horizontal position at 0 and type 2 into the vertical. In other words, if you want a copy placed 2 inches below the original, add 2 inches to the vertical position.

I hope you have found this tutorial helpful. If you have another computer graphic topic you would like to learn about, please click the "Contact" on the bottom of the page.

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