Overview
Index/Bleed Tabs builds tab dividers into a PDF. Index tabs are tab sheets on 3-cut to 24-cut stock that stick out of the book; bleed tabs are coloured blocks printed off the fore-edge of the section pages themselves — a thumb index. You can have either, or both lined up with each other.
Open a PDF (or drop it on the window). If it has bookmarks, the tabs are placed and named from them straight away. Examples… loads ready-made jobs with their own sample documents: recipe cards wire bound on the short edge, an operator manual in a 3-ring binder with tabs and bleed tabs, a perfect-bound parts catalog with a thumb index, a colour-coil cookbook with rounded tabs, and an A4 tape-bound annual report with die-cut arch tabs.
The sections down the left fold away; Collapse all and Expand all do them all at once, and the dividers between the columns drag to resize (double-click to reset).
The online edition runs in your browser: your files are never uploaded, and everything it saves is marked as a demo.
Where the tabs come from
| Source | How it works |
|---|
| Bookmarks | Each bookmark puts a tab in front of the page it points to, with its title on the tab. Choose which bookmark levels make a tab (top level, levels 1 and 2, 1 to 3, every level, or level 2 only). Two bookmarks on one page make one tab. |
| Page numbers | Add rows to the list, or paste a list of page and text lines. |
| CSV / Excel | One row per tab: the page the tab goes in front of, and its text. Pick the sheet, the page column and the text column, plus a second and third line if you want them. With no page column, the rows give the tabs already in the list their text, in order. Bold, italic and colour can be kept from Excel cells. |
| Lists | Ready-made lists — months, years, A–Z, chapters, binder sections and more. Place them spread evenly through the PDF, one every few pages, onto the tabs already in the list, or on the pages saved with the list. + Add as a list keeps the tabs on screen as your own list. |
Paste list… takes one tab per line — the page number, then the text, with tabs, commas or dashes between them — and spreadsheet columns paste straight in. It can also open an RTF file saved from Word, WordPad or TextEdit.
The tab list
The middle column lists every tab with its position, page, colour, picture and text. + Add tab adds one, and Clear empties the list. The counts at the top show how many tabs and how many sets of stock they need.
Click a tab’s text to format it: bold, italic, underline, colour and size for the selected letters, with Enter starting a new line on the tab. Text pasted from Word keeps its bold, italic, underline and colour. Sizes are relative — the whole tab still shrinks or grows to fit. Remove formatting goes back to plain text.
A single tab can have its own colour (the swatch — right-click it to go back) and its own picture.
Tab stock and shape
Tab stock describes the dividers: tabs per set (the cut), the edge the tabs are on (right, left, bottom or top), how far the tab sticks out, the body size (each section’s page size, Letter, A4 or custom), the distances to the first and from the last tab, the gap between tabs, the position the first tab starts on, and whether the stock is collated last position first. Units are inches or millimetres.
Tab shape colours the tab and, when die cutting, is the line the knife follows. On pre-cut stock, pick the shape the stock has. There are 19 shapes: square, rounded, clipped corners, angled, shoulder (rounded, clipped or angled), stepped, stepped rounded, flared, notched, arch, scalloped arch, offset — and picture tabs shaped as a car, truck, boat, house or ship.
Text and images on the tab
- Font: built-in, bundled or installed fonts, with bold and italic.
- Size: fit to the tab between a largest and smallest size, or the same size on every tab.
- Lines: 1, up to 2 or up to 3, wrapping for fewest lines or largest text. Type
| in a tab’s text to break the line there. - Alignment and direction: left, centre or right; reading top to bottom, bottom to top or horizontal; left-to-right or right-to-left. The built-in fonts have no Hebrew or Arabic letters — choose an installed font that does, such as Arial.
- Colour: text colour and tab colour, one colour on every tab or a palette tab by tab, optionally running onto the body, with a text inset.
- Images: a PNG or JPEG on every tab, before or after the text, alone, or behind the text filling the tab. A tab’s own picture wins over the one for every tab.
Bleed tabs
Choose Bleed tabs or Both under Kind of tab. A bleed tab uses the cut, edge, margins and shape from Tab stock and Tab shape, so with Both each bleed tab lines up with its index tab.
- How far it reaches into the page and bleeds past the trim
- What it carries: the tab text, the section number, or colour only — with the text kept inside the trim by a set distance
- Its colour: the tab colour, its own colour, or a different colour for each section
- Printed two-sided, left-hand pages get it on the other edge; the first page of each section can carry one too
- Pages without bleed can have bleed added round them, keeping the trim size
Contents page: tick Add a contents page for one line per section in its bleed-tab colour, with the tab text, at the start, before a chosen page or at the end. It can show each section’s page range (numbered as in the finished PDF or the original), show the bleed tabs on its own edge, link each line to its section, and add a blank back so later pages keep their sides. Long lists run into columns and on to more pages.
Binding and output
Binding: none, perfect bind, 3-ring binder, colour coil, Wire-O or tape bind, on the edge opposite the tabs or one you choose — including top binding for calendars — with a colour for the book preview.
Output:
- Insert a new tab sheet before each section, or turn each section’s first page into the tab sheet
- Print the tab text large on the divider too
- Duplex: tabs start a new sheet and get a back, optionally with the tab text on the back, turning on the long or short edge
- Finish the last set with blank tabs
- Keep the bookmarks, pointed at the new pages
Save document with tabs… writes the whole document; Save tabs only… writes just the tab sheets, for running the tab stock separately.
Die cutting
Switch Die cutting on to cut the tabs out on a Duplo cutter: the DPC-400, DPC-600 or DPC-2024 digital die cutters, the DSM-1000 platen die cutter (steel rule) or the UD-320 rotary die cutter (magnetic die).
- Press sheet size, bleed past the cut and the job name
- Tab sheets per press sheet: the cutter’s usual (DSM and UD as many as fit, DPC one), one per press sheet, or as many as fit with one tab position each
- Locator marks for the cutter’s camera; on the UD, X and Y marks or the Y mark only, with the X mark left or right of centre
- A QR code on each sheet that recalls its cut file (DPC Connect), in the corner you choose
- Coloured insert pages in the document where each tab goes, optionally saying which tab
Save die-cut files… writes the print sheets with the cutter’s marks, plus a cut file for each tab position, named so the QR code finds it.
Preview and book preview
The preview on the right shows the tab sheet, the bleed-tab pages, the contents page or the press sheet, with the cut line if you want it. Below it are the selected tab’s set and its section page.
Book preview shows the book closed, its fore-edge, and every page turned in order, bound the way you chose. Export for customer saves it as a proof.
Templates
A template keeps every setting — stock, shape, text, images, output and die cutting — but not the tab list. Save, Update and Delete manage them, and Export… / Import… move them between computers as .iqtabs files. Automation workflows can use the same templates in their Index / bleed tabs step.
Return to ImposeIQ Index/Bleed Tabs · Open the online demo · Downloads · Support