Printing & folding

How to print a PDF as a booklet

A home-printed booklet takes minutes – as long as the pages land on the paper in the right order. Here's how the reordering works, which printer setting makes or breaks it, and what to watch for with blank pages, thick booklets and stapling.

The short version

1. The PDF is reordered: two pages sit side by side on a landscape sheet, e.g. pages 8 and 1 on the front, 2 and 7 on the back.
2. The page count is padded to a multiple of 4, because every folded sheet holds four booklet pages.
3. You print double-sided, flipping on the short edge, at actual size (100%).
4. Fold all sheets together down the middle and staple along the fold (saddle stitching).

Why the pages have to be reordered

In a stapled booklet the sheets are nested inside each other. The outermost sheet carries the first and the last page, the innermost sheet the two pages in the middle. If you just print the PDF “2 pages per sheet”, pages 1 and 2 end up next to each other – and after folding, nothing is where it should be.

For an 8-page booklet made from 2 sheets, the correct layout looks like this:

That rule – left plus right always equals page count + 1 – is a quick way to check a printout. Printers call the reordering imposition, and binding with staples through the fold is called saddle stitching.

When the page count isn't a multiple of 4

Every sheet carries four booklet pages, so a booklet always has 4, 8, 12, 16 … pages. A 10-page PDF gets 2 blank pages. Where they go is a matter of taste – most often before the back cover, so the last page of the PDF really ends up on the outside back. Alternatively at the very end, or right after the front cover (inside cover).

Booklet page order calculator

Enter the page count of your PDF to see how many sheets you need and which pages go where (blank pages placed before the back cover):

Step by step with PDF Booklet Studio

1. Load the PDF. Drop the file into PDF Booklet Studio. It's processed in your browser only and never uploaded.
2. Choose the paper. Select the paper in your printer. US Letter gives a 5.5 × 8.5 in booklet, A4 an A5 booklet, Tabloid or A3 a full-size one. Pages are scaled to fit automatically.
3. Check blank pages and print mode. The defaults are “before back cover” and “short edge”. The preview shows the front and back of every sheet.
4. Download and print. Print the booklet PDF double-sided at 100% / “Actual size”, flipping on the short edge.
5. Fold and staple. Keep the sheets in the order they come out of the printer, fold them together down the middle, crease with a bone folder or ruler and staple two or three times along the fold.

The right printer settings

Why short edge? Each sheet holds two pages side by side in landscape. If the printer turns the sheet over its long edge, the back comes out rotated by 180°. Some printers only offer “long edge” for landscape jobs – for those, the tool has a Long edge mode that pre-rotates the back sides by 180°.

Test tip: on a new printer, print only pages 1–2 of the booklet PDF first (= one sheet, front and back). If the orientation is right, print the rest.

Printing without a duplex printer

No automatic duplex? It still works, with one extra step. Choose the Manual print mode in the tool and you get two files:

1. Print file 1 (fronts).
2. Put the stack back so the blank side gets printed. Which way round depends on your printer – usually printed side up or down with the same edge leading.
3. Print file 2 (backs). If the order comes out wrong, use “Back sides in reverse order”; if they're upside down, use “Rotate back sides by 180°”.

Thick booklets: signatures and creep

A long-reach stapler that reaches the middle of the sheet works best. Without one: open the booklet with the fold facing up, lay it on a piece of foam board or an eraser, staple from the outside and bend the staple legs over by hand on the inside.

Which paper for which booklet size?

A-series sizes are made by halving the next larger size, so an A4 page fits onto half an A4 sheet without distortion – it's just scaled down to about 71%. A Letter page on half a Letter sheet is scaled to about 65%, with a little white space, because Letter doesn't share that ratio. A PDF that is already half-letter or A5 prints at exactly 100%.

Acrobat Reader and Word as alternatives

If you have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed, its print dialog has a Booklet option under “Page Sizing & Handling”. You can choose the binding (left/right) and the booklet subset – “Both sides”, or “Front side only” and “Back side only” for manual duplex. It works at print time, but doesn't produce a file you can share or send to a print shop.

In Microsoft Word you can set up a booklet while writing: under Layout → Margins → Custom Margins, set “Multiple pages” to Book fold. That only helps while the document is still in Word – for a finished PDF you need an imposition tool.

PDF Booklet Studio creates a new, fully imposed PDF instead. You can open it on any device, send it to a print shop or print it again later – no software install and no upload.

Frequently asked questions