How to print a PDF as a folded booklet
Last updated 27 September 2026
A programme for an event, a small guide, a menu, a story book for a child. Printed page by page they are a loose pile of paper. Printed as a booklet, you fold the sheets in half and have a little book.
How a booklet works
Each sheet of paper holds four pages: two on the front, two on the back. The sheets are stacked and folded in half down the middle. So the outside sheet carries the first page and the last one, and the middle sheet carries the two pages in the centre of the book.
For a 12-page book, the first sheet has pages 12 and 1 on the front, and 2 and 11 on the back. The second has 10 and 3, then 4 and 9. The last has 8 and 5, then 6 and 7. That looks wrong on screen, and is exactly right once folded: you do not have to work it out yourself.
Make it
- If your pages have no numbers yet, add them first with Add page numbers. They help the reader, and help you check the fold.
- Open Print as a booklet and drop the PDF.
- Choose the paper you will print on. A5 pages go on A4 paper, and A4 pages on A3.
- For a book in Arabic or Hebrew, which opens from the right, tick Opens from the right.
- Press Make the booklet, then Save the booklet.
Each sheet holds four pages, so when the number of pages is not a multiple of four, blank pages are added at the end.
Print and fold
- Print on both sides of the paper, and choose flip on the short edge. The setting is often called Short-edge binding, or Flip up.
- Take the sheets out as they come, without changing their order.
- Fold the whole stack in half together, and staple on the fold, or sew it with a needle and thread.
If the back pages come out upside down, the printer flipped on the long edge. Print again with flip on the short edge.
If your printer cannot print on both sides, print the odd pages, put the stack back in the tray, and print the even pages. Try it with one sheet first to see which way round the paper goes back in.