What is a flatplan
Dean Cook • 8 December 2021

A flatplan is an essential and integral link in the production of any magazine. It shows an overview of pages containing editorial and advert positions before production commences.


Generally, it is a sheet containing all the pages in the magazine. It makes constructing a magazine far easier and provides an overview of all the pages. 


For the editor, sales and, more importantly, the production team, it offers complete control of the publication process. It creates efficient workflow practices, good communication, avoids confusion, omissions, content duplications and clashes. 


A flatplan helps to identify unwanted errors as it happens, track progress, and cross-check content and adverts to ensure that anything missing is followed up and received in good time. It can also avoid rejigging pages after the content has been laid out. 


For the production team, it helps to measure time, therefore, avoid slipping past any time-sensitive print deadlines and any stress that it brings.


While a flatplan can easily be generated as a simple A4 sheet showing brief details of all the pages, there are flatplan solutions available. However, we feel many are over-engineered, which require additional time to service. Our tried and very much trusted simple flatplan, used with discipline, can be far more efficient, offering instant on-the-fly decision making.


For smaller paginated titles, we do not generally require a flatplan; instead, a simple editorial and advert list presented from cover to cover is all that is needed.

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