Hello I am typing up a rough draft of an ash can that I plan to saddle stitch staple. I am trying to figure out how to actual lay out the file when I start typing it up but honestly am not to sure how. I know the way the pages need to be staggered but again I don’t know computer wise how to do this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Regards, Seth

How many pages will you have, and do you know what sort of paper stock you will be using?

Many printer drivers have a "make booklet" option which will take care of this for you.  If you're using Word or OpenOffice.org for layout, they actually can handle booklet-izing even before you get the printer involved.  To do this in OO.o, File menu | Print | Printer options,check Make Brochure.  In Word, I think it's a page setup option.

  Yea I was tired yesterday and my brain was apparently lazy that was a pretty silly question. Word just has the print as booklet option. Sorry and thanks for the help.

  Hmm well I have my file set up but now that I have my long reach stapler that can punch easily 30-40 sheets without issue I am finding my page folding poorly. I am trying 24 sheets (factoring in a thicker cover sheet and 20 text sheets) and when I fold the paper over the inner pages stick out further than the outer pages. Does any one have suggestions on folding them to avoid this, or setting my file up so the margins don't look bad when I trim them.
  sorry to ask what are probaly basic questions but I am new to all this binding stuff. 

Heya Seth,

There's not much anything home-available will let you do about the margin creep.  My advice: have wider margins.  White space is generally a positive for readability anyway.

Try a lighter weight of paper; 20lb instead of 24 will make a difference, but if you're doing saddlestitch, the pages will nest inside each other, and at more than about 16 pages (4 sheets), it gets noticeable.

James

  Hmm bumping it down to 20lb would not really dent the quality that much (and would make the cover look sturdier -_^), I think by reducing the thickness of the paper the margin creep will probably be hardly noticeable. Do you think by getting an inexpensive paper folder the folds being more "perfect" would help this also?
Regards, Seth

If you're trying to make some sort of serious booklet, it's not too much trouble to measure the creep and shift the text columns on each page accordingly by hand. (Depends on your layout software, of course) You only need to cut your sample copy to size and then measure the middle spread vs. the first page; increase the outer margin in uniform steps from the first page to the middle spread, then decrease towards the end of the booklet.

Having wider margins is also a good idea simply because you won't be cutting the booklet machine-exact anyway. More white space means that smaller irregularities (and margin creep) disappear in proportion.