Booklet printing from perhaps the cheapest booklet printer





				The printing-booklet.com guide to creating artwork ready for your booklet printing. This page provides you with a guide to creating 'artwork' that we will use when printing your booklets for you. Creating your own artwork is easy to do if you're familiar with using a computer and know how to use software capable of laying out text on a page. Creating your own booklet artwork also saves you money. PLEASE NOTE: Your booklet printing artwork must have an 8mm clear margin all the way round each page. How to Create artwork for your Booklet Printing To start with, take a piece of paper (A4 paper that goes into a typical printer or photocopier is ideal) and fold it in half so it becomes like a greeting card: You now have a very basic four page booklet and/or the covers within which your booklet pages will be contained. Now with the paper folded in half, write on the front 'Front Cover', then open the paper and on the left hand side write 'Inside Front Cover'. On the right hand side write 'inside back cover' then fold the paper and on the back write back cover: 1. Booklets work in multiples of four pages: The smallest number of pages a booklet can be printed with is four and your booklet pages must be divisible by four e.g. the smallest booklet must have four pages; the next smallest booklet must have eight pages, the next must have twelve etc. Printed booklets can have 4 pages, 8 pages, 12 pages, 16 pages, 20 pages etc. A booklet printer cannot print booklets with an odd number of pages or pages non-divisible by four e.g. 6, 10, 14, 18, 22 etc. Sometimes it may be necessary for you to have blank pages within your booklet so that to the total number of pages is divisible by four. Often the inside front cover and inside back covers of printed booklets are left blank. 2. Booklets are printed as 'covers' plus 'X' pages: You will see from the diagrams above that by folding an A4 piece of paper in half gives you the covers within which your booklet pages are contained (it also gives you a very basic, four page A5 booklet). 3. Make a 'dummy' of your booklet to help you plan: A great way of understanding how your booklet will be printed is by making up a 'dummy'. Here's how: Get some A4 paper (how depends on how many pages you are planning to have in your booklet) and tear the A4 paper in half, giving you pieces of A5 paper: Fold a piece of the A5 paper in half and label it as described above (e.g Front cover, inside front cover etc.) Then take as many pieces of A5 paper as required to simulate your final printed booklet and fold them in half and insert them inside each other, all within the 'cover' pages you've just labelled. Then with a pencil number your 'dummy' booklet pages and write on each page a brief description of the information you want on each page: Doing this will help you to understand how many pages your booklet will require, which pages may need to be left blank and how the pages in your booklet artwork need to be numbered. 4. Booklet Printing paper size guide: At printing-booklet.com we print either A4 booklets or A5 booklets. An A4 piece of paper measures 210mm x 297mm and is the standard paper size used in most printers and photocopiers. Folding a piece of A4 paper in half gives you an A5 size page. A5 booklets are usually printed on A4 size paper, folded and stapled in two places (also know as 'saddle stitching' in the printing trade). An A3 piece of paper measures 420mm x 297mm. Folding a piece of A3 paper in half gives you an A4 size booklet page. A4 booklets are usually printed on A3 size paper, folded and stapled in two places. 5. Booklet artwork file formats: PDF Files The most universal file format to send your booklet artwork is pdf. Pdf files are readable by free-to-download software called Adobe Acrobat and have the advantage that the person opening the pdf files does not need to have the same fonts (also known as typefaces) that you have used installed on their computer. To create pdf files, you either need to have the appropriate software to save your files in pdf format, or the ability to 'print' your file to a pdf format. Please make sure you check your pdf files carefully - remember that we print straight from the files you send us. Word Documents Many people use Word to lay out their booklet pages and send their Word documents to us to use as artwork. This is usually OK, but relies on the same fonts (also known as typefaces) being installed on the computer opening the files. If you're using Word it is best to use Windows standard fonts such as Arial or Times. Corel Draw Some people like to use Corel Draw to layout their booklets. Corel Draw has the advantage of being able to convert fonts to 'outlines' - this means that the person opening the file does not need to have the fonts you've used installed on their computer. We advise against supplying artwork in formats other than those mentioned above. Please contact us first if you are unsure as to which format to send us. Remember - we print your booklets straight from the artwork you send us.