How to make a booklet: plan, design, print and fold

To make a booklet, write and lay it out as ordinary single pages, export a PDF, and let the print dialog's booklet option arrange those pages onto folded sheets. You don't design spreads or reorder anything by hand. The planning that matters happens before you write: the finished size, and a page count that divides by four.

What do you need to make a booklet?

How do you make a booklet, step by step?

1. Pick the finished size. One sheet folded in half gives two leaves, four pages. An A4 sheet folds to A5; a US Letter sheet folds to 5.5 × 8.5 inches.
2. Plan the page count in fours. 8, 12, 16, 20 pages. Count the cover as pages 1 and 2 (front and inside front) and the back as the last two.
3. Write the content with one idea per page or spread, and decide where page breaks fall.
4. Lay it out as single pages and export a PDF.
5. Print with the booklet option on both sides of the paper.
6. Fold, nest and staple. Fold each sheet, slide them inside each other in order, and put two staples through the fold.

Why must a booklet have a multiple of four pages?

Each folded sheet carries four pages: two on the front, two on the back. A 12-page booklet is three sheets. A 13-page booklet is four sheets with three blank pages, and the print dialog adds those blanks at the end, where they look like a mistake.

Plan the blanks instead. The inside back cover is a natural place for contact details, a link, or a notes page.

Up to a few dozen pages, depending on paper weight, a staple in the fold holds well; print shops set their own saddle-stitch limit. Past that, print single sheets and use another binding.

How should you lay out a booklet?

Lay it out as single pages in reading order, not as printer sheets. Page 1 is the cover, page 2 is the inside cover, and so on. The arranging of pages onto sheets, which printers call imposition, is the print dialog's job.

What changes when the page will be folded:

• The page shrinks. If you design on A4 pages and print them as an A4 booklet, each page is scaled down to A5, so body text set at 11 pt prints at about 7.8 pt. Design at a larger body size, or print a test sheet first.
• Inner margins need room. The fold eats a little of the page, and the staples sit there. Keep text away from the inside edge.
• Every page break is a design decision. A heading stranded at the bottom of a page looks worse in a booklet than in a long document, because the reader sees two pages side by side.
• Images go where they are discussed. A photo that slides onto the next spread loses its caption.

Writing in Markdown keeps the text plain and applies the layout at the end, so changing the look means no retyping: see Markdown for writers.

How do you make the PDF for a booklet?

Export the pages as a normal PDF, one page per PDF page, at the size you designed. Three checks before printing, from what makes a PDF print-ready:

1. Fonts embedded, so the file prints the same on any computer or at any print shop.
2. Images at print resolution, roughly twice the size they appear on screen.
3. Page count divisible by four.

In bukpress you write the booklet in Markdown, a line of three dashes (---) starts a new page, and the preview shows every page as the PDF will set it, so you can see where breaks fall before you export. Fonts are embedded in the export. bukpress exports A4 pages only, so a booklet printed from it on A4 paper comes out at A5, at about 71% of the designed size. If you need US Letter pages, use another tool. You can write and preview the booklet without paying; exporting needs Lifetime, $27 once, with no watermark. See pricing.

How do you print a PDF as a booklet?

• Adobe Acrobat Reader: File, Print, then under Page Sizing & Handling choose Booklet. Set the subset to both sides, binding left, and print.
• Microsoft Word: Layout, Margins, Custom Margins, then set Multiple pages to Book fold. Word lays the document out as a booklet before you print.
• Other PDF readers often have a booklet setting too. If yours does not, use Acrobat Reader, which is free.

Print one sheet first. Check that page 2 sits behind page 1 and that nothing is upside down. If the back side is flipped, switch between long-edge and short-edge flipping; for booklets on most printers, short-edge flip is the one that works, because the pages sit sideways on the sheet.

How do you fold and bind it?

1. Fold each sheet in half on its own, creasing with a ruler or bone folder.
2. Nest the sheets in order, the first sheet on the outside.
3. Staple through the fold with a long-reach stapler, two staples about a quarter of the way in from each end.
4. Trim the front edge if you want it neat. The inner sheets stick out slightly past the outer ones (printers call this creep), more so in thicker booklets. A paper trimmer or a craft knife and metal ruler fixes it.

Should you print at home or at a print shop?

Home printing suits a few copies, drafts and proofs. For tens of copies, heavier covers or machine-trimmed edges, a print shop is faster. A print shop usually wants the single-page PDF, not one you arranged as a booklet, so they can impose it on their own sheets. Ask before you send anything. If the booklet will be sold or given away in quantity, print on demand is another route, though it works at trade book sizes rather than A5.

Where do you start?

Decide the finished size and write down a page plan: one line per page, 8 or 12 or 16 of them. Write the content against that plan, then lay it out and export the PDF. Paste the Markdown into bukpress, check the preview page by page, export, and print one test sheet before the full run.

Common questions

What size is a booklet?

Whatever size one sheet folds to. An A4 sheet makes an A5 booklet (148 × 210 mm) and a US Letter sheet makes a 5.5 × 8.5 inch booklet. An A3 sheet makes an A4 booklet, which needs a printer that takes A3 paper or a print shop.

Can I make a booklet in Google Docs?

Google Docs has no booklet setting of its own. Download the document as a PDF, then print that PDF with the booklet option in Adobe Acrobat Reader. Formatting a book in Google Docs covers the rest of the setup.

Why are my booklet pages in the wrong order?

Usually because the pages were arranged by hand and then the booklet option arranged them again. Keep the PDF in plain reading order and let the print dialog do it once. If the back sides are upside down, change the flip setting from long edge to short edge.

How do I make a booklet as a lead magnet?

Keep it to 8 to 16 pages, with one promise on the cover and the next step on the last page. How to make a lead magnet PDF people actually finish covers the rest.