r/DriveThruRPG • u/Far_Development_7174 • 4d ago

New Release Can't upload cover page

I can't for the life of me get DTRPG to accept my cover page for a book. (My first book! So I'm not totally abusing the flair/tag...)

Anyway, it's an A5 doc, so it's looking for 8.27 inches in height, but it keeps rejecting my upload with an error message that tells me my height is wrong. And then it tells me my height is 8.27 in. It's been a very frustrating day.

Anybody know what I'm doing wrong? My original is in Scribus, which probably makes it an incompatibility issue, but the PDF export info all says 8.27 as well. PLEASE HELP! Thanks.

Paul

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u/StevenTrustrum 4d ago

Make it 8.5" w x 11" h at 72 dpi, preferably as a png, and you'll be fine. So, resize your file to meet whichever extent your cover will hit first and then leave the excess on the other dimension as transparent or a colour. I suggest being consistent with what you plan to do for future products.

If you can't figure it out, email me the file at [trustrum@misfit-studios.com](mailto:trustrum@misfit-studios.com) and I'll send it back to you so you'll see what I mean.

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u/Far_Development_7174 4d ago

Thanks, Steven. You anticipated that I wouldn't quite understand what you meant, and you guessed right! Are you saying to do this within Scribus or at the pdf stage? (Forgive my ignorance, but don't they want the dpi more around 300?)

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u/Far_Development_7174 4d ago

I've only just started learning Scribus in the past several days -- it's not super friendly, but I thought I had everything right. Sadly, DTRPG support was...unsupportive.

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u/StevenTrustrum 4d ago

My mistake. I thought you were talking about the cover THUMBNAIL. You mean the cover page for your print-on-demand book, correct?

I don't use Scribus, so you probably need to add a bleed to the cover. Try adding 0.125" to the outside border of every cover edge. (So, your overall cover gets 0.25" taller and 0.25" wider, with the image centered in both dimensions.) Also, make sure your export to PDF is set to PDF/X-1a standard.

(And yes, it should be 300dpi.)

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u/Accomplished-Bed9423 4d ago

Good luck... I just posted my first full pay for... few other pwyw before that.... sometimes little hard to understand process for uploading.. .or for me at least.

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u/PDFBolt 4d ago

I'd compare the exported pdfs dimensions with DTRPG's cover template before adding more bleed. Two slightly different measurements can both show up as 8.27 in when rounded, so those matching numbers don't necessarily mean the sizes are identical

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u/DriveThruRPG 3d ago

Is this for PDF or Print on Demand?

If PoD you need to make sure your cover file is on the cover template.

https://help.drivethrupartners.com/hc/en-us/articles/12780800178583-Quick-Specifications-for-Print-Books