# A stapled zine with a card cover sheet

> Two :::paper fences put a salmon card on the outer sheet of an eight-page zine, and postext-folio shows it saddle-stitched round newsprint pages.

- HTML version: https://postext.dev/en/cookbook/saddle-stitched-card-cover
- Recipe Nº 102 · Output & integration · Level 2 (Intermediate) · Outputs: Canvas, Live controls
- Genres: Magazines & zines
- Requires postext ≥ 1.13.4 · tested with 1.14.0 on 2026-10-04
- Pages: [1](https://postext.dev/cookbook/saddle-stitched-card-cover/en/p01.webp?v=1319adb0), [2](https://postext.dev/cookbook/saddle-stitched-card-cover/en/p02.webp?v=1319adb0), [3](https://postext.dev/cookbook/saddle-stitched-card-cover/en/p03.webp?v=1319adb0), [4](https://postext.dev/cookbook/saddle-stitched-card-cover/en/p04.webp?v=1319adb0), [5](https://postext.dev/cookbook/saddle-stitched-card-cover/en/p05.webp?v=1319adb0), [6](https://postext.dev/cookbook/saddle-stitched-card-cover/en/p06.webp?v=1319adb0), [7](https://postext.dev/cookbook/saddle-stitched-card-cover/en/p07.webp?v=1319adb0), [8](https://postext.dev/cookbook/saddle-stitched-card-cover/en/p08.webp?v=1319adb0)
- Open in Sandbox: https://postext.dev/en/sandbox#recipe=saddle-stitched-card-cover&lang=en (.postext: https://postext.dev/cookbook/saddle-stitched-card-cover/en/saddle-stitched-card-cover.postext)
- Last updated: 2026-10-04
- Other languages: [es](https://postext.dev/es/cookbook/saddle-stitched-card-cover.md), [zh](https://postext.dev/zh/cookbook/saddle-stitched-card-cover.md)

## In short

A small folded magazine about a river, with a thick coloured cover and thin newsprint inside. In the 3D viewer it lies closed on the desk and opens like the real thing.

## What you'll build

Issue 3 of *Low Tide*, a free zine about an estuary: eight pages of 140 × 200 mm, two sheets folded and stapled through the fold. The outer sheet, pages 1–2 and 7–8, is a salmon card; the inner sheet, pages 3–6, is cheap newsprint. The cover is printed in one riso blue on the bare card, with no colour field of its own, so on the flat pages below it prints on white, and in Folio it lies closed on the desk in its card colour until you turn it. The two papers are two fences in the Markdown, and the binding is three settings in `config.folio`.

**This recipe answers:**

- How do I print a cover, an insert or a plate section on a different paper from the rest of the book?
- How do I preview a book's binding, cover, paper and lighting before it goes to print?

## The short answer

The zine as a stapled booklet, closed on the desk until the cover turns.

```js
// script.js, lines 235–246
const stage = document.createElement('section');
stage.id = 'folio';
stage.ariaLabel = 'The zine in 3D';
stage.style.cssText = 'height: min(78vh, 720px); margin: 0 auto; max-width: 1280px';
document.getElementById('pages').before(stage);
// Covers from the pages need an even count: page 8 must fall on a verso to be the back.
if (doc.pages.length % 2) console.warn(`${doc.pages.length} pages: the back cover is missing`);
createFolioFromDocument(stage, doc, {
  appearance: { textureBaseUrl: 'https://postext.dev/folio/textures' },
  onChange: ({ pages }) => kitStatus(pages.map((i) => `p. ${i + 1} on `
    + (doc.pages[i].paper ? 'card' : 'newsprint')).join(' · ')),
});
```

## Ingredients

**Teaches**

- [A different paper for a run of pages](https://postext.dev/en/docs/document-format.md#paper): A :::paper container prints the pages it holds on their own stock: a gloss plate section, a card cover, a few tinted leaves.
- [Paper, binding, desk and light (Folio)](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#folio-viewer-config): config.folio says how the 3D book is made and lit: paper stock and weight, binding and covers, the surface under it and the light.

**Also uses**

- [3D book viewer (Folio)](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#a-3d-book-postext-folio)
- [Heading styles](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#heading-styles)
- [Designed openers](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#span-and-advanced-design)
- [Heading attributes](https://postext.dev/en/docs/document-format.md#heading-attributes)
- [Text, rules and boxes in page designs](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#headers--footers)
- [Paragraph styles](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#paragraph-styles)
- [Heads by page role](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#text-elements)
- [Semantic colour palette](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#color-palette)
- [Mirrored margins](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#mirrored-margins)
- [Pages on a canvas](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#rendering-a-page-to-a-bitmap)
- [Section geometry](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#heading-styles)
- [Running heads per section](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#heading-styles)
- [Unnumbered chapters](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#heading-styles)

**Config at a glance**

- [`bodyText`](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#body-text), [`colorPalette`](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#color-palette), `folio`, [`footer`](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#headers--footers), [`header`](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#headers--footers), [`headingStyles`](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#heading-styles), [`headings`](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#headings), [`layout`](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#layout), [`locale`](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#hyphenation), [`page`](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#page), [`paragraphStyles`](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#paragraph-styles)

**APIs**

- [`buildDocument`](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#building-a-document), [`clearMeasurementCache`](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#measurement-cache), [`createFolioFromDocument`](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#a-3d-book-postext-folio), [`renderPageToCanvas`](https://postext.dev/en/docs/configuration.md#rendering-a-page-to-a-bitmap)

**Typefaces**

- Newsreader (OFL-1.1), Bricolage Grotesque (OFL-1.1)

## Method

### 1 · Fence the outer sheet

```js
// script.js, lines 137–220
// :::paper{type=cardStock grammage=250 shade=#f2c9b4}   pages 1–2: the front of the sheet
// # Low Tide {style="cover" …}   # In this issue {…}
// :::
// # The dunlin come back …   pages 3–6, outside any fence: folio.paper, the newsprint
// :::paper{type=cardStock grammage=250 shade=#f2c9b4}   pages 7–8: the back of the sheet
// # Join us {…}   # Low Tide {style="back" …}
// :::
const markdown = String.raw`---
title: "Low Tide"
subtitle: "A zine about the estuary"
author: "The Pill Estuary Group"
publishDate: "Issue 3 · Winter 2026"
---

:::paper{type=cardStock grammage=250 shade=#f2c9b4}

# Low Tide {style="cover" issue="Issue 3 · Winter 2026" strap="Mud, birds, boats and the people who watch them"}

# In this issue {style="feature" kicker="Welcome"}

Low Tide is made twice a year by the people who walk the river path at Pill. It is printed on the cheapest paper the printer has, folded by hand at the sailing club, and left in the pub, the post office and the bird hide. Take one. Leave it for somebody else when you have read it.

This winter we follow the dunlin that come back to the mud every October, talk to the last man in the village who still builds wooden boats, and print a tide table for the months when the light goes early. The cover is a heavier card than the pages inside it, so it survives a pocket and a little rain.

:::paragraphs{style="credits"}
**Edited by** Joan Avery and Sam Okonjo · **Drawings** Priya Lal · **Printed** in an edition of 400 copies, two sheets folded and stapled.
:::

:::

# The dunlin come back {style="feature" kicker="Birds"}

They arrive in the second week of October, a few dozen at first and then, within days, a thousand or more, feeding along the tideline in a moving grey band. Dunlin are small, about the size of a starling, with a long bill that droops at the tip. In winter they lose the black belly of their breeding plumage and turn the colour of the mud they feed on, which is why most people who walk the path never notice them until they lift.

When they lift, everybody notices. A flock of dunlin in the air turns as one bird: grey as it banks away from you, white as it turns back and shows its underside. On a clear afternoon at the top of the tide, when the mud is covered and the birds have nowhere left to feed, the flock rises off the saltmarsh and turns over the water for minutes at a time, flashing like a shoal of fish.

They come from the Arctic: from the tundra of northern Russia and Scandinavia, where they breed in the short summer and leave as soon as the young can fly. A dunlin ringed on the mud below the church in 2019 was caught again the following summer on the Taymyr Peninsula, five thousand kilometres away, and back on the same stretch of mud the October after.

Joan has counted them every Sunday morning for eleven winters. Her highest count was 4,200, in January 2021, after a week of frost on the moors drove birds down from the reservoirs. Her lowest was 380. She does not know why the numbers swing so much from year to year, and nor, she says, does anybody else.

## How to see them

Come two hours before high water and stand on the slipway by the sailing club. As the tide pushes in, the birds are driven up the mud towards you, closer and closer, until they give up and fly. Bring binoculars, and keep dogs on a lead below the hide: a bird that is flushed off the mud in winter spends energy it cannot afford.

# The last boatbuilder {style="feature" kicker="People"}

Dennis Harcombe built his first boat at fourteen, in his father's shed on Marine Parade, and his last one at seventy-eight. He reckons there were forty in between, give or take, most of them clinker-built dinghies of larch on oak, the kind every family on the river once kept at the bottom of the garden.

“The trick of it,” he says, “is that you never fight the wood. You look at a plank and you see which way it wants to bend, and you let it.” He still steams planks in a length of drainpipe over a camping stove, though these days only to repair other people's boats.

His shed is the last on the river where you can buy a pair of oars made to measure. He makes them from ash, shaves the looms by hand and charges what he charged in 1990, because, he says, the price was fair then and the oars have not got any better.

When he talks about the river he talks about the mud first: where it shifts, where the channel has moved since he was a boy, where a boat can sit out a tide and where it will be swallowed to the thwarts. He has watched the estuary change for seventy years and does not think it is finished.

# Tide table {style="feature" kicker="December to February"}

High water at Pill, in local time. Add about twenty minutes for the tide to reach the slipway at the sailing club. Spring tides, the biggest of the month, are marked in bold: on those days the mud below the hide is covered completely.

:::paragraphs{style="tides"}
**Sun 6 Dec** 07:42 and 20:05 · **Sat 12 Dec** 12:18 · **Sun 20 Dec** 06:55 and 19:20

**Sun 3 Jan** 06:31 and 18:54 · **Sat 9 Jan** 11:47 · **Sun 17 Jan** 06:10 and 18:36

**Sun 31 Jan** 05:58 and 18:22 · **Sat 6 Feb** 10:59 · **Sun 14 Feb** 05:37 and 18:01
:::

Times are for a still day. A strong westerly holds the water up and brings high tide a little early; a long dry spell on the moors does the opposite. If you are walking out on the mud, go on a falling tide and come back with an hour to spare.

:::paper{type=cardStock grammage=250 shade=#f2c9b4}

# Join us {style="back-matter" kicker="The group"}

We walk the river path on the first Sunday of every month, meeting at the sailing club at ten. Nobody needs to know anything about birds, boats or tides; most of us didn't when we started. Bring boots.

The next issue comes out in June. If you have something to say about the estuary, a drawing, a memory or a count of anything at all, leave it in the box behind the bar at the Duke of Cornwall, or write to us at the sailing club.

:::paragraphs{style="credits"}
Set in Newsreader and Bricolage Grotesque (SIL Open Font License) · Text: original, CC BY 4.0 · The Pill Estuary Group and the people in this issue are fictional.
:::

# Low Tide {style="back" strap="Free · take one, leave one"}

:::
`; // content.<lang>.md, inlined by the Cookbook
```

A saddle-stitched booklet is a stack of folded sheets, so the cover sheet holds the first two and the last two pages. One fence holds pages 1–2, another pages 7–8, and the pages between them fall outside both, on the book's own paper. Each fence starts and ends on a new page, which here is the page the cover and the welcome need anyway.

### 2 · Newsprint, stapled, covers from the pages

```js
// script.js, lines 40–49
const folio = {
  tilt: 20,
  // The book's paper: every page outside a :::paper fence, the inner sheet here.
  paper: { type: 'newsprint', grammage: 52 },
  // cover: 'pages' turns page 1 as the front and page 8 (a verso) as the back; on a saddle
  // stitch the cover is a sheet like the others, only heavier (gotcha: folio-cover-pages-even).
  binding: { type: 'saddleStitch', cover: 'pages' },
  surface: { type: 'plain', color: col('ink') },
  lighting: { environment: 'overcast', intensity: 1.1 },
};
```

`folio.paper` is the newsprint of every page outside a fence. `saddleStitch` folds the sheets round staples with no flat spine, and `cover: 'pages'` turns page 1 and page 8 as the covers. On a saddle stitch the cover turns like the other sheets, only stiffer, and a cover leaf that names its own stock (the card) is drawn on that stock.

### 3 · A cover in one ink

```js
// script.js, lines 53–86
// Eleven tide lines of a seeded length: blue rules across the foot of the cover.
let seed = 0x71de; // Mulberry32: the same lines on every run
const random = () => {
  seed = (seed + 0x6d2b79f5) | 0;
  let x = Math.imul(seed ^ (seed >>> 15), 1 | seed);
  x = (x + Math.imul(x ^ (x >>> 7), 61 | x)) ^ x;
  return ((x ^ (x >>> 14)) >>> 0) / 4294967296;
};
const tideLines = Array.from({ length: 11 }, (_, i) => ({ kind: 'rule', id: `tide-${i}`,
  direction: 'horizontal', thickness: pt(2.2 + i * 0.5), color: col('blue'),
  placement: { ...at('page', 'top-left', 10 + random() * 40, 128 + i * 5.2),
    size: { width: mm(50 + random() * 70) } } }));
const flush = { span: 'page', margins: { top: mm(0), bottom: mm(0), left: mm(0), right: mm(0) },
  footer: { elements: [] } }; // no folio on either cover (the style lasts one page)
const cover = { ...flush, id: 'cover', numbered: false, advancedDesign: { enabled: true,
  minHeight: mm(TRIM_H), slot: { elements: [
    text('issue', '{attr.issue}', caps(7.5), at('page', 'top-left', INNER, 16)),
    text('title', '{titleText}', { fontFamily: SANS, fontWeight: 800, fontSize: pt(70),
      lineHeight: 0.86, letterSpacing: pt(-2), color: col('blue') },
    { ...at('#issue', 'below', -1, 8), size: { width: mm(TRIM_W - INNER - OUTER) } }),
    text('strap', '{attr.strap}', { fontFamily: 'Newsreader', italic: true, fontSize: pt(13),
      lineHeight: 1.25, color: col('ink') },
    { ...at('#title', 'below', 1, 6), size: { width: mm(100) } }),
    ...tideLines,
  ] } } };
const back = { ...flush, id: 'back', numbered: false,
  breakBefore: { enabled: true, parity: 'even' }, advancedDesign: { enabled: true,
    minHeight: mm(TRIM_H), slot: { elements: [
      text('title', '{titleText}', { fontFamily: SANS, fontWeight: 800, fontSize: pt(26),
        letterSpacing: pt(-0.5), color: col('blue'), align: 'center' },
      { ...at('page', 'center', 0, -6), size: { width: mm(100) } }),
      text('strap', '{attr.strap}', { ...caps(7, col('ink')), align: 'center' },
        { ...at('#title', 'below', 0, 3), size: { width: mm(100) } }),
    ] } } };
```

The cover is a heading style with zero margins and a full-page design: the issue line, the title in Bricolage Grotesque at 70 pt, the strap in Newsreader italic, and eleven tide lines whose lengths come from a seeded generator, so every run draws the same ones. Nothing paints the page's ground: the card does.

### 4 · One opener for every piece

```js
// script.js, lines 90–100
const feature = (id) => ({ id, numbered: false, breakBefore: { enabled: true, parity: 'any' },
  marginBottom: pt(LEAD), advancedDesign: { enabled: true, minHeight: mm(30), slot: {
    elements: [
      text('kicker', '{attr.kicker}', caps(7.5), at('container', 'top-left', 0, 1)),
      text('title', '{titleText}', { fontFamily: SANS, fontWeight: 800, fontSize: pt(25),
        lineHeight: 0.98, letterSpacing: pt(-0.4), color: col('ink') },
      { ...at('#kicker', 'below', 0, 2.5), size: { width: 'fill' } }),
      { kind: 'rule', id: 'rule', direction: 'horizontal', thickness: pt(2.5), color: col('blue'),
        placement: { ...at('#title', 'below', 0, 4), size: { width: mm(14) } } },
    ] } } });
const headingStyles = [cover, back, feature('feature'), feature('back-matter')];
```

Each feature is a first-level heading in the `feature` style: a new page, a kicker from its attributes, the title and a short blue rule. Running the five pieces through one style keeps the inside of the zine to two typefaces and one accent.

### 5 · Open it stapled

The code is [the short answer](#the-short-answer) above. `createFolioFromDocument` reads the binding and the covers from `doc.config.folio` and each leaf's paper from `page.paper`. The pen warns when the page count is odd, because page 8 can be the back cover only when it falls on a verso.

## The whole recipe

One file, composed from the recipe's folder with the sample text and the Cookbook's shared kit inlined; it builds its own page. To run it, put it in a `<script type="module">` on an empty page, or paste it into the JS panel of a new CodePen (as a module). It imports postext from esm.sh, so there is nothing to install or build.

- Source folder: https://github.com/drnachio/postext/tree/main/cookbook/saddle-stitched-card-cover

### script.js

```js
// ═══ Postext Cookbook · Nº 102 · A stapled zine with a card cover sheet ═══════════════
// https://postext.dev/en/cookbook/saddle-stitched-card-cover
// Code: MIT · Text: original (CC BY 4.0) · Pictures: drawn in code
// Fonts: Newsreader, Bricolage Grotesque (SIL OFL 1.1) · Needs postext ≥ 1.13.4
//
// Eight pages, two sheets folded and stapled through the fold. The outer sheet (pages 1–2 and
// 7–8) is salmon card, the inner sheet newsprint: two :::paper fences put the card on the
// cover pages, and postext-folio draws the book saddle-stitched, closed until you turn the
// cover. The flat pages below print on white: only the 3D book knows about paper.
import { buildDocument, renderPageToCanvas, clearMeasurementCache } from 'https://esm.sh/postext';
import { createFolioFromDocument } from 'https://esm.sh/postext-folio';

const LANG = 'en'; // @lang: the language of the sample document ('en' | 'es')
const RECIPE = 'saddle-stitched-card-cover';

// ─── 1 · Design ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
// #region palette: two inks of a risograph, and the greys of the newsprint text
const palette = {
  ink: '#1f2124', // the text
  blue: '#0b6fb3', // the riso blue: titles, the tide lines, kickers
  muted: '#5d6066', // credits and folios
  rule: '#b9bcc0',
};
const col = (id) => ({ hex: palette[id], model: 'hex', paletteId: id });
const colorPalette = [
  ...Object.entries(palette).map(([id, hex]) => ({ id, name: id, value: { hex, model: 'hex' } })),
  { id: 'main-color', name: 'accent (defaults)', value: { hex: palette.blue, model: 'hex' } },
];
// #endregion
const [TRIM_W, TRIM_H, TOP, BOTTOM, INNER, OUTER] = [140, 200, 20, 22, 17, 15]; // mm
const LEAD = 13.6; // pt
const SANS = 'Bricolage Grotesque';
const at = (to, edge, x = 0, y = 0) => ({ anchor: { to, edge }, offset: { x: mm(x), y: mm(y) } });
const text = (id, content, look, placement) => ({ kind: 'text', id, content, overflow: 'wrap',
  align: 'left', placement, ...look });
const caps = (size, color = col('blue')) => ({ fontFamily: SANS, fontSize: pt(size),
  fontWeight: 700, letterSpacing: pt(size * 0.18), textTransform: 'uppercase', color });

// #region folio: newsprint inside, stapled through the fold, covers taken from the pages
const folio = {
  tilt: 20,
  // The book's paper: every page outside a :::paper fence, the inner sheet here.
  paper: { type: 'newsprint', grammage: 52 },
  // cover: 'pages' turns page 1 as the front and page 8 (a verso) as the back; on a saddle
  // stitch the cover is a sheet like the others, only heavier (gotcha: folio-cover-pages-even).
  binding: { type: 'saddleStitch', cover: 'pages' },
  surface: { type: 'plain', color: col('ink') },
  lighting: { environment: 'overcast', intensity: 1.1 },
};
// #endregion

// #region covers: big type and tide lines on the page; the card colour comes from the paper
// Eleven tide lines of a seeded length: blue rules across the foot of the cover.
let seed = 0x71de; // Mulberry32: the same lines on every run
const random = () => {
  seed = (seed + 0x6d2b79f5) | 0;
  let x = Math.imul(seed ^ (seed >>> 15), 1 | seed);
  x = (x + Math.imul(x ^ (x >>> 7), 61 | x)) ^ x;
  return ((x ^ (x >>> 14)) >>> 0) / 4294967296;
};
const tideLines = Array.from({ length: 11 }, (_, i) => ({ kind: 'rule', id: `tide-${i}`,
  direction: 'horizontal', thickness: pt(2.2 + i * 0.5), color: col('blue'),
  placement: { ...at('page', 'top-left', 10 + random() * 40, 128 + i * 5.2),
    size: { width: mm(50 + random() * 70) } } }));
const flush = { span: 'page', margins: { top: mm(0), bottom: mm(0), left: mm(0), right: mm(0) },
  footer: { elements: [] } }; // no folio on either cover (the style lasts one page)
const cover = { ...flush, id: 'cover', numbered: false, advancedDesign: { enabled: true,
  minHeight: mm(TRIM_H), slot: { elements: [
    text('issue', '{attr.issue}', caps(7.5), at('page', 'top-left', INNER, 16)),
    text('title', '{titleText}', { fontFamily: SANS, fontWeight: 800, fontSize: pt(70),
      lineHeight: 0.86, letterSpacing: pt(-2), color: col('blue') },
    { ...at('#issue', 'below', -1, 8), size: { width: mm(TRIM_W - INNER - OUTER) } }),
    text('strap', '{attr.strap}', { fontFamily: 'Newsreader', italic: true, fontSize: pt(13),
      lineHeight: 1.25, color: col('ink') },
    { ...at('#title', 'below', 1, 6), size: { width: mm(100) } }),
    ...tideLines,
  ] } } };
const back = { ...flush, id: 'back', numbered: false,
  breakBefore: { enabled: true, parity: 'even' }, advancedDesign: { enabled: true,
    minHeight: mm(TRIM_H), slot: { elements: [
      text('title', '{titleText}', { fontFamily: SANS, fontWeight: 800, fontSize: pt(26),
        letterSpacing: pt(-0.5), color: col('blue'), align: 'center' },
      { ...at('page', 'center', 0, -6), size: { width: mm(100) } }),
      text('strap', '{attr.strap}', { ...caps(7, col('ink')), align: 'center' },
        { ...at('#title', 'below', 0, 3), size: { width: mm(100) } }),
    ] } } };
// #endregion

// #region features: every piece opens a page with a kicker and a title in the riso blue
const feature = (id) => ({ id, numbered: false, breakBefore: { enabled: true, parity: 'any' },
  marginBottom: pt(LEAD), advancedDesign: { enabled: true, minHeight: mm(30), slot: {
    elements: [
      text('kicker', '{attr.kicker}', caps(7.5), at('container', 'top-left', 0, 1)),
      text('title', '{titleText}', { fontFamily: SANS, fontWeight: 800, fontSize: pt(25),
        lineHeight: 0.98, letterSpacing: pt(-0.4), color: col('ink') },
      { ...at('#kicker', 'below', 0, 2.5), size: { width: 'fill' } }),
      { kind: 'rule', id: 'rule', direction: 'horizontal', thickness: pt(2.5), color: col('blue'),
        placement: { ...at('#title', 'below', 0, 4), size: { width: mm(14) } } },
    ] } } });
const headingStyles = [cover, back, feature('feature'), feature('back-matter')];
// #endregion

const config = () => ({ // a factory: the engine caches resolved configs per object
  locale: 'en-us',
  colorPalette,
  page: { sizePreset: 'custom', width: mm(TRIM_W), height: mm(TRIM_H), dpi: 150,
    margins: { top: mm(TOP), bottom: mm(BOTTOM), left: mm(INNER), right: mm(OUTER),
      mirror: true } },
  layout: { layoutType: 'single' },
  bodyText: { fontFamily: 'Newsreader', fontSize: pt(10), lineHeight: pt(LEAD),
    color: col('ink'), boldColor: col('ink'), italicColor: col('ink'),
    referenceColor: col('ink'), textAlign: 'justify', firstLineIndent: mm(4),
    indentAfterHeading: false, hyphenation: { enabled: true }, optimalLineBreaking: true,
    avoidWidows: true, avoidOrphans: true, avoidRunts: true },
  headings: { fontFamily: SANS, color: col('ink'), fontWeight: 800, levels: [
    // Restated: any headings object drops the H1 break (gotcha: headings-drop-h1-break).
    { level: 1, fontSize: pt(25), breakBefore: { enabled: true, parity: 'any' } },
    { level: 2, fontSize: pt(10), lineHeight: pt(LEAD), fontWeight: 700, color: col('blue'),
      marginTop: pt(LEAD), marginBottom: pt(0) },
  ] },
  headingStyles,
  paragraphStyles: [
    { id: 'credits', fontFamily: SANS, fontSize: pt(7.4), lineHeight: pt(10.4),
      color: col('muted'), boldColor: col('blue'), textAlign: 'left', firstLineIndent: pt(0),
      marginTop: pt(LEAD) },
    { id: 'tides', fontFamily: SANS, fontSize: pt(8.6), lineHeight: pt(LEAD),
      boldColor: col('blue'), textAlign: 'left', firstLineIndent: pt(0) },
  ],
  header: { elements: [] },
  footer: { elements: [text('folio', '{pageNumber}   {title} · {publishDate}', { ...caps(6.5,
    col('muted')), align: 'center' }, at('page', 'bottom', 0, -11))] },
  folio,
});

// ─── 2 · Content ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
// #region cover-sheet: the outer sheet's four pages in card, the inner sheet on newsprint
// :::paper{type=cardStock grammage=250 shade=#f2c9b4}   pages 1–2: the front of the sheet
// # Low Tide {style="cover" …}   # In this issue {…}
// :::
// # The dunlin come back …   pages 3–6, outside any fence: folio.paper, the newsprint
// :::paper{type=cardStock grammage=250 shade=#f2c9b4}   pages 7–8: the back of the sheet
// # Join us {…}   # Low Tide {style="back" …}
// :::
const markdown = String.raw`---
title: "Low Tide"
subtitle: "A zine about the estuary"
author: "The Pill Estuary Group"
publishDate: "Issue 3 · Winter 2026"
---

:::paper{type=cardStock grammage=250 shade=#f2c9b4}

# Low Tide {style="cover" issue="Issue 3 · Winter 2026" strap="Mud, birds, boats and the people who watch them"}

# In this issue {style="feature" kicker="Welcome"}

Low Tide is made twice a year by the people who walk the river path at Pill. It is printed on the cheapest paper the printer has, folded by hand at the sailing club, and left in the pub, the post office and the bird hide. Take one. Leave it for somebody else when you have read it.

This winter we follow the dunlin that come back to the mud every October, talk to the last man in the village who still builds wooden boats, and print a tide table for the months when the light goes early. The cover is a heavier card than the pages inside it, so it survives a pocket and a little rain.

:::paragraphs{style="credits"}
**Edited by** Joan Avery and Sam Okonjo · **Drawings** Priya Lal · **Printed** in an edition of 400 copies, two sheets folded and stapled.
:::

:::

# The dunlin come back {style="feature" kicker="Birds"}

They arrive in the second week of October, a few dozen at first and then, within days, a thousand or more, feeding along the tideline in a moving grey band. Dunlin are small, about the size of a starling, with a long bill that droops at the tip. In winter they lose the black belly of their breeding plumage and turn the colour of the mud they feed on, which is why most people who walk the path never notice them until they lift.

When they lift, everybody notices. A flock of dunlin in the air turns as one bird: grey as it banks away from you, white as it turns back and shows its underside. On a clear afternoon at the top of the tide, when the mud is covered and the birds have nowhere left to feed, the flock rises off the saltmarsh and turns over the water for minutes at a time, flashing like a shoal of fish.

They come from the Arctic: from the tundra of northern Russia and Scandinavia, where they breed in the short summer and leave as soon as the young can fly. A dunlin ringed on the mud below the church in 2019 was caught again the following summer on the Taymyr Peninsula, five thousand kilometres away, and back on the same stretch of mud the October after.

Joan has counted them every Sunday morning for eleven winters. Her highest count was 4,200, in January 2021, after a week of frost on the moors drove birds down from the reservoirs. Her lowest was 380. She does not know why the numbers swing so much from year to year, and nor, she says, does anybody else.

## How to see them

Come two hours before high water and stand on the slipway by the sailing club. As the tide pushes in, the birds are driven up the mud towards you, closer and closer, until they give up and fly. Bring binoculars, and keep dogs on a lead below the hide: a bird that is flushed off the mud in winter spends energy it cannot afford.

# The last boatbuilder {style="feature" kicker="People"}

Dennis Harcombe built his first boat at fourteen, in his father's shed on Marine Parade, and his last one at seventy-eight. He reckons there were forty in between, give or take, most of them clinker-built dinghies of larch on oak, the kind every family on the river once kept at the bottom of the garden.

“The trick of it,” he says, “is that you never fight the wood. You look at a plank and you see which way it wants to bend, and you let it.” He still steams planks in a length of drainpipe over a camping stove, though these days only to repair other people's boats.

His shed is the last on the river where you can buy a pair of oars made to measure. He makes them from ash, shaves the looms by hand and charges what he charged in 1990, because, he says, the price was fair then and the oars have not got any better.

When he talks about the river he talks about the mud first: where it shifts, where the channel has moved since he was a boy, where a boat can sit out a tide and where it will be swallowed to the thwarts. He has watched the estuary change for seventy years and does not think it is finished.

# Tide table {style="feature" kicker="December to February"}

High water at Pill, in local time. Add about twenty minutes for the tide to reach the slipway at the sailing club. Spring tides, the biggest of the month, are marked in bold: on those days the mud below the hide is covered completely.

:::paragraphs{style="tides"}
**Sun 6 Dec** 07:42 and 20:05 · **Sat 12 Dec** 12:18 · **Sun 20 Dec** 06:55 and 19:20

**Sun 3 Jan** 06:31 and 18:54 · **Sat 9 Jan** 11:47 · **Sun 17 Jan** 06:10 and 18:36

**Sun 31 Jan** 05:58 and 18:22 · **Sat 6 Feb** 10:59 · **Sun 14 Feb** 05:37 and 18:01
:::

Times are for a still day. A strong westerly holds the water up and brings high tide a little early; a long dry spell on the moors does the opposite. If you are walking out on the mud, go on a falling tide and come back with an hour to spare.

:::paper{type=cardStock grammage=250 shade=#f2c9b4}

# Join us {style="back-matter" kicker="The group"}

We walk the river path on the first Sunday of every month, meeting at the sailing club at ten. Nobody needs to know anything about birds, boats or tides; most of us didn't when we started. Bring boots.

The next issue comes out in June. If you have something to say about the estuary, a drawing, a memory or a count of anything at all, leave it in the box behind the bar at the Duke of Cornwall, or write to us at the sailing club.

:::paragraphs{style="credits"}
Set in Newsreader and Bricolage Grotesque (SIL Open Font License) · Text: original, CC BY 4.0 · The Pill Estuary Group and the people in this issue are fictional.
:::

# Low Tide {style="back" strap="Free · take one, leave one"}

:::
`; // content.<lang>.md, inlined by the Cookbook
// #endregion

// ─── 3 · Fonts ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
const FONTS = {
  Newsreader: ['400', '400i', '700'],
  'Bricolage Grotesque': ['400', '700', '800'],
};

// ─── 4 · Build & show ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────
await loadFonts(FONTS, markdown);
const doc = await buildWithFonts(() => buildDocument({ markdown }, config()), markdown);
showPages(doc, { title: 'Low Tide · a stapled zine in Folio' });

// #region answer: the zine as a stapled booklet, closed on the desk until the cover turns
const stage = document.createElement('section');
stage.id = 'folio';
stage.ariaLabel = 'The zine in 3D';
stage.style.cssText = 'height: min(78vh, 720px); margin: 0 auto; max-width: 1280px';
document.getElementById('pages').before(stage);
// Covers from the pages need an even count: page 8 must fall on a verso to be the back.
if (doc.pages.length % 2) console.warn(`${doc.pages.length} pages: the back cover is missing`);
createFolioFromDocument(stage, doc, {
  appearance: { textureBaseUrl: 'https://postext.dev/folio/textures' },
  onChange: ({ pages }) => kitStatus(pages.map((i) => `p. ${i + 1} on `
    + (doc.pages[i].paper ? 'card' : 'newsprint')).join(' · ')),
});
// #endregion

// ─── Kit ── helpers shared by every Cookbook recipe · postext.dev/cookbook ─────

// ─── Kit · core v1 ── the same in every recipe · postext.dev/cookbook ─────────
function mm(value) { return { value, unit: 'mm' }; }
function pt(value) { return { value, unit: 'pt' }; }
function em(value) { return { value, unit: 'em' }; }
/** The sample language's string: t({ en: 'Figure', es: 'Figura' }). */
function t(strings) { return strings[LANG] ?? Object.values(strings)[0]; }
/** A file in this recipe's assets folder, served from the Postext repo by jsDelivr. */
function asset(file) { return `https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/drnachio/postext@main/cookbook/${RECIPE}/assets/${file}`; }

// ─── Kit · fonts v1 ── the same in every recipe · postext.dev/cookbook ────────
// Postext measures text with the faces the browser has loaded, and caches the
// widths, so every face must be ready before the first build. Faces come from
// Fontsource: the same static files the PDF embeds, so screen and PDF agree.

/** faces = { 'Family Name': ['400', '400i', '700'] }. `text` is the sample:
 *  letters beyond Latin-1 (č, ł, ő…) also load the latin-ext files. With
 *  `optional`, a face Fontsource does not ship is skipped instead of failing.
 *  Resolves to the number of faces added. */
async function loadFonts(faces, text = '', { optional = false } = {}) {
  kitStatus('Loading fonts…');
  const ranges = {
    latin: 'U+0000-00FF,U+0131,U+0152-0153,U+02BB-02BC,U+02C6,U+02DA,U+02DC,U+0304,U+0308,U+0329,'
      + 'U+2000-206F,U+20AC,U+2122,U+2191,U+2193,U+2212,U+2215,U+FEFF,U+FFFD',
    'latin-ext': 'U+0100-02BA,U+02BD-02C5,U+02C7-02CC,U+02CE-02D7,U+02DD-02FF,U+0304,U+0308,U+0329,'
      + 'U+1D00-1DBF,U+1E00-1E9F,U+1EF2-1EFF,U+2020,U+20A0-20AB,U+20AD-20C0,U+2113,U+2C60-2C7F,U+A720-A7FF',
  };
  const subsets = /[Ā-˿Ḁ-ỿ]/.test(text) ? ['latin', 'latin-ext'] : ['latin'];
  const jobs = [];
  let added = 0;
  for (const [family, specs] of Object.entries(faces)) {
    const id = fontsourceId(family);
    const meta = optional ? await fontsourceMeta(family) : null;
    for (const spec of new Set(specs)) {
      const weight = parseInt(spec, 10);
      const style = spec.endsWith('i') ? 'italic' : 'normal';
      if (hasFace(family, weight, style)) continue;
      if (optional && !(meta?.weights.includes(weight) && meta.styles.includes(style))) continue;
      for (const subset of subsets) {
        const url = `https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@fontsource/${id}@5/files/${id}-${subset}-${weight}-${style}.woff2`;
        const face = new FontFace(family, `url(${url}) format('woff2')`,
          { weight: String(weight), style, unicodeRange: ranges[subset] });
        jobs.push(face.load().then((ready) => { document.fonts.add(ready); added++; }, () => {
          if (subset === 'latin' && !optional) throw new Error(`Fontsource has no ${family} ${weight} ${style}`);
        }));
      }
    }
  }
  await Promise.all(jobs).catch((error) => { kitFail(error); throw error; });
  return added;
}

/** Runs `build` (a buildDocument or buildBundle call) and checks the faces
 *  the pages use. A regular face missing from FONTS is loaded with a warning;
 *  bold and italic variants are loaded when the family ships them. Then the
 *  measurement caches are cleared and the build runs again. */
async function buildWithFonts(build, text = '') {
  const tried = new Set();
  for (let round = 0; round < 3; round++) {
    kitStatus('Laying out…');
    await new Promise(requestAnimationFrame);          // let the status paint first
    const result = await Promise.resolve().then(build).catch((error) => { kitFail(error); throw error; });
    const wanted = { base: {}, variants: {} };
    for (const { font, base } of [result].flat().flatMap(fontStringsOf)) {
      const { family, weight, style } = parseFont(font);
      const key = `${family}|${weight}|${style}`;
      if (tried.has(key) || hasFace(family, weight, style)) continue;
      tried.add(key);
      (wanted[base ? 'base' : 'variants'][family] ??= []).push(`${weight}${style === 'italic' ? 'i' : ''}`);
    }
    if (Object.keys(wanted.base).length) {
      console.warn(`[cookbook] FONTS does not list ${JSON.stringify(wanted.base)}: loading them.`);
    }
    const added = await loadFonts(wanted.base, text) + await loadFonts(wanted.variants, text, { optional: true });
    if (added === 0) return result;
    clearMeasurementCache();
  }
  throw new Error('The fonts did not settle after three builds.');
}

/** Every font string of the layout. `base` marks a block's own face; its
 *  bold, italic and bold-italic variants are listed whether or not used. */
function fontStringsOf(doc) {
  const found = new Map();
  const walk = (node) => {
    if (!node || typeof node !== 'object') return;
    if (Array.isArray(node)) { node.forEach(walk); return; }
    for (const [key, value] of Object.entries(node)) {
      if (typeof value === 'string' && /fontString$/i.test(key)) {
        found.set(value, found.get(value) || key === 'fontString');
      } else if (value && typeof value === 'object') walk(value);
    }
  };
  walk(doc.pages);
  walk(doc.blocks);
  return [...found].map(([font, base]) => ({ font, base }));
}

/** '700 37.5px Open Sans' / 'italic 400 13px "Source Serif 4"' → { family, weight, style }.
 *  A string with no weight ('95.8px Young Serif', from a design text) is 400. */
function parseFont(font) {
  const m = /^(?:(italic|oblique)\s+)?(?:small-caps\s+)?(?:(\d+|bold|normal)\s+)?[\d.]+px\s+(.+)$/.exec(font.trim());
  if (!m) throw new Error(`Unexpected font string: ${font}`);
  const weight = m[2] === 'bold' ? 700 : !m[2] || m[2] === 'normal' ? 400 : Number(m[2]);
  return { family: m[3].replace(/^["']|["']$/g, ''), weight, style: m[1] ? 'italic' : 'normal' };
}

/** True when a loaded FontFace covers exactly this family, weight and style
 *  (document.fonts.check() is also true for families nobody declared). */
function hasFace(family, weight, style) {
  for (const face of document.fonts) {
    if (face.status !== 'loaded' || face.style !== style) continue;
    if (face.family.replace(/^["']|["']$/g, '') !== family) continue;
    const [low, high = low] = face.weight.split(' ').map(Number);
    if (weight >= low && weight <= high) return true;
  }
  return false;
}

/** Fontsource's id for a family: 'Source Serif 4' → 'source-serif-4'. */
function fontsourceId(family) { return family.toLowerCase().replace(/\s+/g, '-'); }

/** The weights and styles a family ships ({ weights: [400, 700], styles: ['normal', 'italic'] }), or null. */
function fontsourceMeta(family) {
  fontsourceMeta.cache ??= new Map();
  const id = fontsourceId(family);
  if (!fontsourceMeta.cache.has(id)) {
    fontsourceMeta.cache.set(id, fetch(`https://api.fontsource.org/v1/fonts/${id}`)
      .then((res) => (res.ok ? res.json() : null), () => null));
  }
  return fontsourceMeta.cache.get(id);
}

// ─── Kit · viewer v1 ── the same in every recipe · postext.dev/cookbook ───────
/** Shows the pages as facing spreads on a dark desk: the first page is a
 *  recto on its own, then verso | recto pairs, as in a bound book. Pages
 *  are painted when they scroll near the screen. */
function showPages(docs, { title, width = 460 } = {}) {
  const root = viewer(title);
  const pages = [docs].flat().flatMap((doc) =>
    doc.pages.map((page) => ({ doc, page, n: (doc.pageIndexOffset ?? 0) + page.index })));
  const spreads = [];
  let verso = null;
  for (const p of pages) {
    if (p.n % 2 === 1) { if (verso) spreads.push([verso, null]); verso = p; }
    else { spreads.push([verso, p]); verso = null; }
  }
  if (verso) spreads.push([verso, null]);
  const density = Math.min(window.devicePixelRatio || 1, 2);
  showPages.painter?.disconnect();
  const painter = new IntersectionObserver((entries) => {
    for (const { isIntersecting, target } of entries) {
      if (!isIntersecting) continue;
      painter.unobserve(target);
      const { doc, page } = target.postext;
      renderPageToCanvas(page, doc, target, { scale: (width * density) / page.width });
    }
  }, { rootMargin: '800px' });
  showPages.painter = painter;
  root.replaceChildren(...spreads.map((pair) => {
    const spread = document.createElement('div');
    spread.className = 'pt-spread';
    for (const p of pair) {
      const figure = document.createElement('figure');
      if (p) {
        const label = p.page.pageLabel || String(p.n + 1);
        const canvas = document.createElement('canvas');
        canvas.postext = p;
        canvas.style.aspectRatio = `${p.page.width} / ${p.page.height}`;
        canvas.setAttribute('role', 'img');
        canvas.setAttribute('aria-label', `Page ${label}`);
        const folio = document.createElement('figcaption');
        folio.textContent = label;
        figure.append(canvas, folio);
        painter.observe(canvas);
      } else figure.className = 'pt-blank';
      spread.append(figure);
    }
    return spread;
  }));
  kitStatus(`${pages.length} ${pages.length === 1 ? 'page' : 'pages'}`);
  document.documentElement.dataset.postext = 'ready';
  return pages.length;
}

/** The desk, the bar and the error reporting, created once. */
function viewer(title) {
  if (!document.getElementById('pt-kit')) {
    document.head.insertAdjacentHTML('beforeend', `<style id="pt-kit">
      :root { color-scheme: dark; }
      body { margin: 0; background: #0e1014; color: #b9bcc4; font: 13px/1.45 system-ui, sans-serif; }
      #pt-bar { position: sticky; top: 0; z-index: 1; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; align-items: center;
        gap: 6px 16px; padding: 10px 16px; background: rgb(14 16 20 / .92); backdrop-filter: blur(6px);
        border-bottom: 1px solid #23262d; }
      #pt-bar strong { color: #f4f1ea; font-weight: 600; }
      #pt-actions { display: flex; gap: 12px; margin-left: auto; }
      #pt-actions a, #pt-actions button { color: #d8a21a; font: inherit; background: none; border: 0; padding: 0; cursor: pointer; }
      #pages { display: grid; justify-items: center; gap: 48px; padding: 32px 16px 72px; }
      .pt-spread { display: flex; }
      .pt-spread figure { margin: 0; width: min(460px, 44vw); }
      .pt-spread canvas { display: block; width: 100%; background: #fff;
        box-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgb(0 0 0 / .5), 0 22px 44px -16px rgb(0 0 0 / .8); }
      .pt-spread figure:first-child canvas { box-shadow: inset -14px 0 14px -14px rgb(0 0 0 / .18), 0 1px 2px rgb(0 0 0 / .5), 0 22px 44px -16px rgb(0 0 0 / .8); }
      .pt-spread figcaption { margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; font: 600 10px/1 system-ui, sans-serif;
        letter-spacing: .18em; text-transform: uppercase; color: #6c7079; }
      .pt-blank { visibility: hidden; }
      @media (max-width: 760px) {
        .pt-spread { flex-direction: column; gap: 32px; }
        .pt-spread figure { width: min(460px, 92vw); }
        .pt-blank { display: none; }
      }
    </style>`);
    document.body.insertAdjacentHTML('afterbegin',
      '<header id="pt-bar"><strong id="pt-title"></strong><span id="pt-status" role="status"></span><span id="pt-actions"></span></header>');
    document.getElementById('pt-title').textContent = document.title || 'Postext';
    addEventListener('error', (event) => kitFail(event.error ?? event.message));
    addEventListener('unhandledrejection', (event) => kitFail(event.reason));
  }
  if (title) document.getElementById('pt-title').textContent = title;
  return document.getElementById('pages')
    ?? document.body.appendChild(Object.assign(document.createElement('main'), { id: 'pages' }));
}

function kitStatus(text) {
  viewer();
  document.getElementById('pt-status').textContent = text;
}

function kitFail(error) {
  document.documentElement.dataset.postext = 'error';
  kitStatus(`Error: ${error?.message ?? error}`);
}

// ─── /Kit ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
```

## Variations

### A heavier, white cover

Change both fences and the cover sheet is a 300 g white card; the inner pages stay on newsprint.

```diff
-:::paper{type=cardStock grammage=250 shade=#f2c9b4}
+:::paper{type=cardStock grammage=300 shade=#fbfaf6}
```

### A plain booklet

Leave the fences out and the cover is a sheet of the pages' newsprint, a little heavier. [The swatch book](https://postext.dev/en/cookbook/paper-swatch-book.md) goes the other way and gives every leaf its own stock.

## Pitfalls

- **Cover: 'pages' needs an even page count for the back board.** With binding.cover set to 'pages' the first page turns as the front board and the last page as the back board only when it falls on a verso. An odd page count leaves the book with a front cover and no back: pad it to an even count or keep the case.
- **A paper run starts and ends on a new page, and a leaf takes its recto's paper.** Text inside :::paper starts on a new page and the text after it does too. A leaf has two pages and one paper, its recto's, so a run that starts on a verso prints that page on the paper of the leaf it shares. Put a page break where a run should start on a recto.
- **The Folio viewer takes the size of its container.** createFolioFromDocument fits the book into the element you give it, with the buttons and the page count in its margins. An element with no height (an empty div in normal flow) shows nothing: give it a height in CSS.
- **Load every face before layout.** Layout measures text with the faces the browser has loaded and caches the widths, so a face that arrives after the first build leaves wrong line breaks and a PDF that no longer matches the screen. Load every weight and style first, and call clearMeasurementCache() before rebuilding when one arrives late.
- **A config is cached by identity: build a fresh object.** The engine caches resolved configs by object identity, so changing a config in place and building again reuses the old result. Build a fresh object for every build, which is why a recipe's config is a factory: config().

## Credits

- Recipe: Ignacio Ferro ([@drnachio](https://github.com/drnachio))
- Images: The tide lines on the cover, drawn in code: Ignacio Ferro, CC-BY-4.0
- Type: Newsreader (OFL-1.1), Bricolage Grotesque (OFL-1.1)
- Code: MIT · Sample content: CC-BY-4.0

## Related

- [Nº 100 · A laid-out book on the desk, in 3D](https://postext.dev/en/cookbook/folio-book-on-a-desk.md): createFolioFromDocument from the postext-folio package opens a laid-out chapter as a cloth-bound book on a walnut desk, styled by config.folio. · Level 2 (Intermediate) · Fiction, drama & literary prose
- [Nº 051 · Two-ink riso zine: art in one spot colour](https://postext.dev/en/cookbook/riso-zine-single-ink.md): A four-page zine for a two-drum risograph: full-colour drawings print as tints of the pink, recoloured by the pen for the canvas and by renderToPdf in the PDF. · Level 3 (Advanced) · Magazines & zines
- [Nº 011 · One source, print and screen editions](https://postext.dev/en/cookbook/print-and-screen-editions.md): Both editions come from one config: htmlViewer.overrides holds the dark screen design, and applyHtmlViewerOverrides merges it in before each HTML build. · Level 3 (Advanced) · Magazines & zines