One sheet. One small cut. A book you can pass around.

This guide is for a mini zine printed on one side of one sheet. It is different from a stapled booklet printed on both sides. Start with the US Letter practice sheet or A4 practice sheet; its big numbers make the sequence easier to check.

  1. Print one copy

    Select the same paper size as your PDF, landscape, one-sided, at actual size / 100%. Turn off booklet printing and multiple pages per sheet. The PDF is already arranged.

  2. Make eight panels

    Lay the sheet landscape. Fold the top edge down to the bottom edge, crease and reopen. Fold left edge to right edge and reopen. Fold each short edge into the center crease, then reopen. You now have four columns and two rows.

  3. Cut the middle half

    With the sheet open, the slit follows the horizontal center crease across only the two middle columns. A convenient way is to fold left edge to right edge again, then cut from the folded edge along the center crease, stopping at the next crease. Reopen. Do not cut right across the sheet.

  4. Open the little diamond

    Fold the long top edge to the bottom again, with the printed faces on the outside. Gently push the short ends toward one another. The slit opens into a diamond; keep pushing until the middle panels meet in a cross.

  5. Close your book

    Fold the arms of that cross around so page 1 becomes the front cover and page 8 the back. Press the creases flat. Check pages 2 through 7 in reading order before making more copies.

Why are some pages upside down?

The top row folds over. Those panels have to be upside down on the flat sheet to become upright in the finished book. See the page-order diagram before manually rotating anything.

If the fold goes wrong

The book does not open
Check that the slit crosses exactly the middle half of the sheet, and both layers were cut when the paper was folded.
The pages are in the wrong order
Start from the numbered practice sheet, with 1 on the front and 8 on the back. Do not select your printer's booklet option.
The margins are uneven
Match the paper size, turn off automatic scaling, and crease carefully. Keep words and artwork inside the safe area.

Learn from the community

The Sedgwick Museum's folding guide, State Library Victoria's zine activity and L.A. Zine Fest resources are useful references. Our diagrams and templates are newly made; these organizations do not endorse this tool.