How to Make a Booklet

Have you ever thought of making a booklet, but felt it was way too complicated for you to even try? So you never got around to it, eh?

Booklet-making is not something I do very frequently, but I have done it, and can do it. In fact, I've been working on updating one for some months, and I'm almost ready for the printing stage. It occurs to me that you might like to see my simple easy steps.

1. The hardest part is writing the contents of your booklet. I first made this testimonial booklet more than 10-12 years ago, but decided this summer that I should update it and make a fresh, new batch to give to friends. (I can also offer a PDF version on my website for free downloads. But that has a much easier format.)

2. First I write the contents as for a letter to be printed on 8.5" x 11" paper. I insert photos or images where I want them, and go over the pages a number of times to proof-read and make the words, sentences and paragraphs look good.

3. When I'm satisfied I can save this file as a .pdf file and it is ready to upload to my website for the public. Those who want it on paper pages can print them out on their own home printer.

4. But some people prefer to have a paper booklet in their hands. They are clueless about printing a book from their computer or phone. So for them I go to a lot more work.

5. I create a template on the computer with the paper turned landscape. (That is; wide across and shorter from top to bottom.) I set a narrow margin on all sides, and set up 2 columns on the sheet. That's for 2 pages per side.

6. Important! Now I cut some blank scrap paper into small squares, all about 4 inches across -left-to-right, and about 3 inches across from top-to-bottom. This is a dummy to help me see where to paste the contents of my pages into the smaller format.

7. The first sheet of my booklet is likely to be cover- stock paper, so I might only need to paste my cover design on the right column, and there I shrink it to fit that space. If I want the booklet to look quite professional I will not put any other pages on this sheet. (It may be of thicker or shiny cover stock).

When printed this will act as a folder for all the other folded sheets of letter-size paper, but those sheets will have two pages on each side, looking like one, folded.

8. I fold the rest of the small dummy sheets in half and write a page number on each folded side. The trick is to keep them folded so you don't get mixed up as to which pages shall be on which side. Then when you separate these slips you can see which page you shall paste on which side of the next sheet, and then the next.

9. Keeping my dummy sheets folded, I pencil a #1 on the front when it is folded. I open that folded page, and write #2 on the other side, then #3 on the next one to that, fold it open and write #4 on the left side, and #5 on the right side... work your way through the pages. The last side should have the number of the last page in the book manuscript you wrote on your computer. If that is #32, then your booklet will have 32 pages inside that first cover sheet, but on only four letter-sized sheets of paper.

10. Now you can go back to your computer and open the template you created in step 5. Using just one page of your template, paste your page 32 on the left side, and page 1 on the right side. Staying in the same file , move down to the next page on the computer, and paste page 2 on the left side column and page #31 on the right side.

11. I save that file of four pages as one file and name it with the page numbers on it eg. 32+1;2+31.odt. (or .doc if you are in Windows). This will give you four pages to each sheet of paper.

I should point out that if you used a larger font size for your first file on 8.5" x 11" sheets in portrait position, you might find that your smaller pages don't have room enough. The answer here is to highlight the text on each pasted page and change the font to be a smaller size, and maybe edit out any words not really necessary, or condense some more. If you made your margins too wide, make them narrower, so if the first document had margins of .5 or .7, try these smaller pages with .3 all around.

12. Now peel the second outer sheet off the dummy, and repeat pasting the text of the full-text booklet file. #28+#5 on one side, go down to next page on the screen, and paste in the text of pager #6(left) and #27(right). Save the file with those page numbers and then open the template again, to do the next 4 pages. (#26+#7) and (#8 +#25) on the other side, which is the second page of the screen version. Save it - and do one more like that.

13, Printing on both sides should present you with the pages for your booklet. Just fold them and lay them inside the folded page that has your cover design on the front.

If you want ten booklets, print each of the landscape sheets with 4 pages on them, so the printer prints on both sides. Print four covers on cover-stock.

If it takes more than 4 or 5 sheets to make a booklet you might want to consider stapling them together at the fold. If only a few sheets, it will hold up okay when just folded.

This may be hard to visualize until you try it in your own hands. Then, suddenly it all makes sense!

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