How to print a booklet with Publish by Zaweba

Folding a stack of sheets into a little booklet sounds simple until you try to work out which page goes where. Page 1 shares a side with the last page, page 2 with the one before it, and getting it wrong by hand produces a booklet that reads out of order. Publish by Zaweba does that arithmetic for you with File > Export booklet PDF.

The arrangement is called imposition, and the kind Publish does is saddle stitch: sheets folded in half, nested inside each other and stapled through the fold, like a programme or a parish magazine.

What the export does

Export booklet PDF puts your pages two to a side in the order a saddle-stitched booklet needs. For an 8-page booklet the sides come out as 8 and 1, then 2 and 7, then 6 and 3, then 4 and 5. Print those, fold, nest and staple, and the pages read 1 to 8 in the right order.

Every saddle-stitched booklet has a page count that's a multiple of four, because each sheet of paper carries four pages (two on each side). If your publication has, say, 10 pages, Publish pads it with blank pages up to the next multiple of four. It's worth knowing so you can decide what goes on those spare pages. A blank inside back cover is fine; a blank page in the middle of a story is not, so plan the content to fill the count or put the blanks where they look natural.

Printing it

Booklet printing is done by PDF only, which is useful, because it means you can check the result before using any paper. Open the exported PDF and flick through the sides to make sure the pairs look right.

Then print double-sided, flipping on the short edge. That setting matters. Most printers offer flipping on the long edge or the short edge, and for booklet sides laid out landscape the short edge is the one that keeps the back of each sheet the right way up. If your printer can't print double-sided automatically, print one side, turn the stack over, and print the other, testing with a couple of sheets first so you know which way to feed them.

Designing for a booklet

Set the page size of your publication to the size of one booklet page, not the sheet it's printed on. An A5 booklet printed on A4 sheets is the classic: A5 pages, two to a side of A4. Use facing pages so the margins mirror, and give the inside margins a little extra room for the fold and the staples.

Keep important things away from the fold. A picture that runs right into the middle loses a sliver when the pages are stapled. Text near the outer edge risks being trimmed if you cut the booklet down after folding. Master pages are a big help for headers, footers and page numbers, which should sit in the same place on every page so they look tidy when the booklet is flipped through.

Checking before a full run

Print one complete copy and assemble it before you print fifty. Fold it, nest the sheets, staple through the fold and read it from cover to cover. This catches the problems no amount of looking at the screen will, such as a page number that drifts close to the fold, or a photo on the centre spread that's split awkwardly.

If you're sending the job to a print shop instead of printing at home, ask how they want the file. Many shops prefer normal, single pages in a print-ready PDF and do the imposition themselves; others are happy with a booklet PDF. Publish gives you both, so you can send whichever they ask for.

For clubs, schools and churches producing programmes, newsletters and orders of service, Export booklet PDF in Publish by Zaweba turns a fiddly job into a routine one.