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GreasePress Typical Workflow

This tutorial describes a common workflow for creating and exporting a small editorial document.

1. Create the document

Open a 3D Viewport, show the sidebar, and select the GreasePress tab. In Document, choose an A4, A5, or custom format, set portrait or landscape orientation, and click Create Editorial Document. Choose the initial page count in the operator dialog.

After creation, adjust margins, safe area, bleed, and visible guide options. Use Apply Format and Guides whenever the document dimensions or guide settings change.

2. Organize pages

Use Pages to move between pages. Add, duplicate, rename, reorder, or delete pages as needed. GreasePress stores every page in its own collection and displays only the active page during normal editing.

A useful approach is to create the main page types first, duplicate similar pages, and then rename them with meaningful labels.

3. Add page content

In Contents, add Grease Pencil artwork, ordinary text, a page background, a linked text box, or an image. Imported images are placed on a textured mesh so their stacking and orientation remain predictable.

Use Bring Forward and Send Backward to change object order. Existing scene objects can be assigned to the current page with Move Selected to Page. Select Page Contents selects all editable objects belonging to the active page.

4. Create text

For a short independent text, use Add Text.

For text that must continue through several boxes on the same object, use Linked Text Box. Add frames with Add Next Frame, navigate between them, resize or position each frame, and enter Edit Mode with Edit Text. Blender flows the text through the ordered frames.

For an article spanning several page objects, use Multi-page Story:

  1. Create a new source text data-block.
  2. Open it in the Text Editor and replace the placeholder with the full article.
  3. Add a story frame on each required page, or link selected Text objects.
  4. Reorder the frames when necessary.
  5. Click Update Multi-page Flow.

GreasePress measures each frame and distributes the source at word boundaries. The panel reports how many characters were distributed and whether text remains in overflow.

5. Define typography

Open Styles and create reusable text styles. Each style can store a font, size, line spacing, character spacing, word spacing, shear, and horizontal alignment.

Apply the active style to selected text, every text object on the current page, or every frame in the active multi-page story. Capture from Selected Text updates a style from an existing text object. Mark one style as the default for newly managed text.

6. Build master pages

Use Master Pages for repeated items. Enable and configure headers, footers, and page numbering. Supported variables are:

  • {PAGE}: current page number.
  • {PAGES}: total page count.
  • {LABEL}: page label.

You can also select arbitrary objects and use Add Selected to Master. GreasePress copies the master sources onto all pages. Use Update Master Pages after changing master content or page order.

7. Check the guides

The Guides panel controls page border, margins, safe area, bleed, and center lines. Click Update Guides after changes. Frame Page aligns the viewport with the active page.

Guides are editorial aids and are not treated as normal page content during imposed-side generation.

8. Choose an imposition

Open Imposition and select a mode:

  • Booklet for center-folded signatures with two pages per side.
  • Bi-fold for a four-panel brochure.
  • Three-panel Accordion Fold for a Z-fold brochure.
  • Three-panel Roll Fold for a roll fold with a reduced tuck-in panel.

For booklets, choose the duplex flip and whether GreasePress may add blank pages to reach a multiple of four. For roll folds, set the tuck-in reduction. Review the order or panel preview and run Check Imposition.

9. Generate printable sides

In Sides, set any gap between pages and enable fold or trim marks. Click Generate Sides. GreasePress creates temporary collections containing transformed copies of the page objects.

Navigate through the generated sides, frame the active side in the viewport, or return to source pages. When source content changes, delete or regenerate the sides.

10. Run the document check

Use Document Check before export. The preflight inspects page availability, meaningful page content, images, effective image resolution, text and story overflow, imposition requirements, and generated sides.

Open the report in Blender's Text Editor for the complete list. Fix errors before exporting; warnings should be reviewed according to the intended output.

11. Export PDF

Generate sides first. In PDF Export, choose 150 DPI for drafts or 300 DPI for higher-quality output, set JPEG quality and the output path, and click Export Imposed PDF.

GreasePress renders each side with an orthographic camera and combines the JPEG renders into a multi-page PDF. Inspect the final PDF for page order, back-side orientation, fold positions, bleed, and print scaling before production.