Several days ago while scrapbooking at a friend’s kitchen table, she commented on how nice it would be to work on two pages at once instead of having to wait for the file to save while going back and forth between two related pages. Thanks to a frappe consumed earlier in the day, it occurred to me very late last night that there was a way to do this (I am typically asleep within seconds after going to bed).

1. Click on the vertical bar that separates your work area from the Pages/Pictures/Content column on the right and move it as far to the right as it will go. Move the bottom horizontal bar to the right.

2. Select “View” and then “All.”

3. Create your facing page on a 12 x 12 square. When you are done, gather up the elements that make up the second page (hold down the shift key and click on each element) and group them together (“Arrange” tab and “Group”).

4. Right click on the group, select Cut, move to the next page and click Paste. Go back to the Two-Page View and make sure it’s all how you want it. You’ll have to “Ungroup” it if you want to make any changes. You may find that everything, except for the background, needs to be moved to the right a bit to allow for the binding. To do this, lock the background, then use Control-A (select all) and nudge everything into place using the arrows on your keyboard.