How to set up a gatefold or trifold leaflet

A gatefold or trifold in Layout by Zaweba is simply a spread with more pages in it. Each spread can hold from 1 to 10 pages side by side, and pages in a spread are joined at their shared edges. Add three pages to a spread for a trifold, or four for a gatefold, and design across the panels as one wide sheet that knows where the folds are.

Other programs often make you fake a fold by drawing guides on one large page. That works until you need to export panels separately, or a picture has to cross a fold exactly. Treating each panel as a real page keeps those jobs straightforward.

How spreads handle folds

Pages in a spread are joined, so a frame or background can run across the fold. A spread background, whether colour, gradient or picture, is drawn once across all the pages. When single pages are exported, any frame that spans a fold is cut exactly at the join, so the halves meet with no seam.

Bleed works with this. Bleed is set per edge, and joined inner edges never get bleed, so the folds stay clean while the outer edges get the bleed the printer needs.

Setting up a trifold

A standard trifold is a sheet folded into three panels. Create a document with the panel size as the page size. In the Pages panel, which shows spreads with page thumbnails, arrange the outside of the leaflet as one spread of three pages and the inside as another. The Page tool lets you give pages their own sizes and orientations, which matters for a roll fold, where the panel that tucks inside is usually a little narrower than the others so it folds without buckling. Your printer can tell you the exact widths.

Lay out the outside spread with the front cover, back cover and the flap that people see when they first open it. Then design the inside spread as one wide view, the way a reader sees it fully opened.

Setting up a gatefold

A gatefold has two outer panels that fold inwards to meet in the middle, opening like doors. Set up the spread with four pages: the two outer flaps and the two centre panels. As with a trifold, the flaps usually need to be slightly narrower so they close neatly, so set those page widths with the Page tool.

Gatefolds are often used for a big reveal, a wide photograph or a map, across the centre panels. Place the picture as one frame across the join, and Layout keeps it whole on screen and in PDFs.

Things that catch people out

Panel order is the big one. On the outside of a trifold, the front cover is not the left hand panel, and on a roll fold the back cover usually sits in the middle of the outside sheet. Fold a sheet of paper, number the panels in pencil and keep it on the desk while you work.

Keep text off the folds. Leave a margin either side of each join so words don't crease. Column guides and Create guides, which make rows and columns fitted to the page or margins, make it easy to give each panel the same inner margins.

Watch photographs that cross a fold. Faces and small text right on the crease look odd. Shift the picture so the fold falls somewhere quiet.

Proofing and output

Print a proof, fold it and check that every panel faces the right way. Then export a press PDF with crop and bleed marks. You can export the spread whole for the printer, or page by page if they've asked for single panels, and it still lines up exactly at the join.

Live preflight checks bleed problems, missing pictures and RGB in print as you go, so the file that leaves Layout by Zaweba is ready to be folded.