Booklet printing guide

Double-sided printing

If your printer prints on both sides automatically (duplex), choose “Printer prints both sides” in the tool and download one file. In the print dialog:

• Two-sided: turn it on and choose Flip on short edge. This is the setting that matters most: flipping on the long edge prints the back sides upside down.
• Scale: choose Actual size or 100%. Do not choose Fit to page: it shrinks the pages and changes the margins.
• Orientation: Landscape. Most programs pick it automatically because the pages are wide.
• Paper size: the size you chose in the tool (A4, for example). If you chose “Original page size”, print on paper large enough for two pages side by side.

Manual double-sided printing

If your printer only prints on one side, choose “One side at a time (two files)” in the tool. You get two files: front sides and back sides.

1. Print the whole front-sides file.
2. Put the printed stack back in the paper tray, turned over on the short edge. How paper is fed differs between printers, so mark a test sheet with a pencil to see which side gets printed and which edge goes in first.
3. Print the back-sides file. If the order comes out reversed (the back of the first sheet lands on the last sheet), choose Reverse order in the printer settings and try again.
4. If the back sides come out upside down, turn on “Flip back sides 180°” in the tool and download the back-sides file again.

Folding and stapling

1. Order the sheets so the first sheet (the one with the cover) is on the outside and the last sheet is in the middle.
2. Fold all the sheets together down the middle in one go, and press along the fold with a ruler or the back of a spoon to make it crisp.
3. Staple from the outside along the fold with two or three staples. A long-reach stapler is easiest. Without one, open a normal stapler, press it into a piece of cardboard or an eraser, then bend the staple legs flat from the inside by hand.
4. In slightly thicker booklets the inner sheets stick out at the open edge. Trim that edge with a paper cutter or at a print shop if you want it flush.

Signatures for thick books

Folding a lot of sheets together is hard, and staples will not hold them. For books over roughly 60 pages, choose “Signatures” in the tool: the sheets are split into small groups (signatures), and each signature is folded on its own.

• 4 to 6 sheets per signature (16 to 24 pages) works well with ordinary printer paper.
• The preview marks where each signature starts. Print the whole file, split the sheets into signatures in order, and fold each one separately.
• Stack the signatures in order, the first on top, then bind them: sew along the folds, glue the spine, or take them to any binding shop.

Common problems

The back side is printed upside down

The printer is flipping on the long edge. Choose Flip on short edge in the print dialog. If that option is missing, turn on “Flip back sides 180°” in the tool and download again.

The pages are small or the margins are large

The print dialog is shrinking the file. Choose Actual size or 100% instead of Fit to page.

The order is wrong after folding

Make sure the first sheet is on the outside and the sheets did not get shuffled after printing. Also check the direction: “Arabic” is for books that open from the right.

Adobe Acrobat is very slow or stuck on “Flattening”

Some PDFs make Acrobat spend a long time processing transparency before it prints. The quickest fix: open the file in Chrome or Edge and print from there. Or, in Acrobat’s print dialog, open Advanced and turn on Print As Image.

My printer cannot print on both sides

Use “One side at a time (two files)” and follow the manual printing steps.