What a booklet actually is
A home-printed booklet is a stack of sheets, each printed with two pages on the front and two on the back, then folded in half and stapled through the fold. One A4 sheet folded becomes four A5 pages; one US Letter sheet becomes four Half Letter (5½ × 8½ inch) pages. Because every sheet carries four pages, the page count of a booklet is always a multiple of four.
The tricky part is that the pages do not print in reading order. On an eight-page booklet the outer sheet carries pages 8 and 1 on the front and 2 and 7 on the back, and the inner sheet carries 6 and 3, then 4 and 5. Working this out by hand for a 40-page notebook is a recipe for mistakes, which is why printing software calls it imposition and does it for you.
Page order for common booklets
This is the order our PDF export uses, generated by the same code:
| Pages | Sheets | Front of each sheet (left, right) | Back of each sheet (left, right) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 2 | 8–1 · 6–3 | 2–7 · 4–5 |
| 12 | 3 | 12–1 · 10–3 · 8–5 | 2–11 · 4–9 · 6–7 |
| 16 | 4 | 16–1 · 14–3 · 12–5 · 10–7 | 2–15 · 4–13 · 6–11 · 8–9 |
| 20 | 5 | 20–1 · 18–3 · 16–5 · 14–7 · 12–9 | 2–19 · 4–17 · 6–15 · 8–13 · 10–11 |
The pattern is always the same: the first and last pages share the outer sheet, and each sheet inward takes the next pair from both ends. On every front, the two page numbers add up to the page count plus one; on every back, too.
- Front of sheet 1pages 8 and 1
- Back of sheet 1pages 2 and 7
Printing it
- Print a test of two sheets first. Duplex settings are where booklets go wrong, and a test costs two sheets instead of twenty.
- Choose double-sided, flip on the short edge. The sheets are landscape, so the short edge is the correct hinge. If the backs come out upside down, switch to the long edge.
- Keep the scale at 100%. “Fit to page” shrinks every page by a few percent, which matters for grids and lined paper. See printing at actual size.
- Manual duplex: print the odd-numbered pages of the PDF, take the stack out, turn it as your printer’s diagram shows (usually face down, top edge first) and print the even-numbered pages.
If the PDF has blank pages at the end, they are the padding to a multiple of four. You can use them as notes pages or tear them out after binding.
Folding and stapling
Fold each sheet individually first, crease it with the back of a spoon or a bone folder, then nest the sheets inside each other in order. Line up the folds and open the booklet flat at the centre spread. A long-arm stapler reaches the middle of the fold; put two or three staples about 2 cm from the top and bottom edges and one in the middle for a larger booklet. If you do not have a long-arm stapler, open a normal stapler flat, staple from the outside into a cork board or a folded towel, and bend the legs over by hand.
For more than about 12 sheets, split the booklet into two or three smaller signatures and sew them together, or use a different binding. The binding guide covers the options.
Finishing touches
- Trim the fore edge. Nested sheets creep outward at the open edge by about the thickness of the sheets wrapped around them. A 500-sheet ream of 80 gsm paper is about 5 cm thick, so each sheet is about 0.1 mm:
| Sheets | Pages | Innermost sheet sticks out by about |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 8 | 0.1 mm |
| 5 | 20 | 0.4 mm |
| 10 | 40 | 0.9 mm |
| 15 | 60 | 1.4 mm |
| 20 | 80 | 1.9 mm |
Up to about 10 sheets the step is under a millimetre and a closed booklet looks fine. Beyond that, a steel ruler and a sharp craft knife give a clean, square edge; keep page numbers and grids a few millimetres in from the outer edge so trimming doesn’t cut them.
- Add a cover. Print the first sheet on thin card (around 160 gsm) for a sturdier notebook; most home printers handle it through the rear or manual feed.
- Plan the layout. For a dot grid travel journal, A5 dot grid printed as a booklet with page numbers in the outer corner makes a neat, numbered index-ready notebook. For a notebook with a cover, the pads page builds the cover and inside pages in one PDF to print single- or double-sided; for a folded booklet, choose the paper in the generator and switch on its booklet option.
