How to Print a Folded Bulletin or Booklet

A folded bulletin is one sheet of letter paper printed on both sides and folded in half. Getting the back side right way up is the whole trick. Once you know which setting does that on your printer, it's the same every week.

How a folded bulletin is laid out

Turn a sheet of letter paper sideways (landscape) and fold it in half. You now have four small pages, each 5½ by 8½ inches: the front cover, two inside pages, and the back cover. Two of them are on each side of the sheet.

The outside of the sheet carries the back cover on the left and the front cover on the right. The inside carries the two inside pages, left and right. That's why our folded templates have exactly two pages, each split into two panels: page 1 is the outside of the sheet and page 2 is the inside. They're already in the right order, so you don't need any booklet setting. You just print both pages on one sheet.

Longer booklets follow the same rule, and every sheet adds four pages, so a folded booklet always has a page count that divides by four: 4, 8, 12, 16. An 8-page booklet is two sheets nested together. The outer sheet carries pages 8 and 1 on its outside and 2 and 7 inside; the inner sheet carries 6 and 3, then 4 and 5. You don't have to work that out yourself; the booklet settings below do it for you.

Short edge or long edge?

When a printer prints on both sides, it needs to know which way you'll turn the paper to read the back:

Flip on the short edge is for sideways (landscape) sheets, like a folded bulletin. Use it for all our folded templates: the bulletin, funeral, wedding and concert programs.
Flip on the long edge is for upright (portrait) pages read like a letter: the newsletters, prayer list and large-print order of worship.

Pick the wrong one and the back side prints upside down. It's an easy mistake to make, and the fix is just to switch to the other setting.

On a home or office printer

If your printer prints on both sides by itself:

Word for Windows: File > Print, then change "Print One Sided" to Print on Both Sides with Flip pages on short edge.
Word for Mac: File > Print, then in the print settings choose two-sided printing with short-edge binding.
Google Docs: File > Print opens the browser's print window, where you choose the printer and its settings (Google's print help). Look there for a two-sided setting. If you can't find one, use the one-side-at-a-time method below.
LibreOffice: File > Print, then open the printer's Properties and choose duplex on the short edge, the setting LibreOffice's own help names for booklets (LibreOffice Help).

If your printer prints on one side only, print page 1, put the printed sheet back in the paper tray, and print page 2. Word for Windows can walk you through it: choose Manually Print on Both Sides, and Word prompts you to feed the pages back in (Microsoft Support).

The question is which way to put the sheet back. Printers differ, so test once: before printing, make a small pencil arrow on the top edge of a blank sheet, pointing up, on the side facing you. Print page 1 on it and note where the print landed relative to your arrow. That tells you, for good, which side up and which end first your printer wants. Write it on a sticky note on the printer.

On the church copier

Office copiers usually print on both sides by themselves. Send the file from your computer, choose the copier as the printer, and look in its printer settings for two-sided printing. Copier settings name it many ways ("2-sided", "Duplex", "Print on both sides"), but the choice is still short edge or long edge.

Many copiers also have a booklet mode. Don't use it for our folded templates. Booklet mode takes ordinary pages and shrinks two onto each side of a sheet. Our pages are already arranged two to a side, so booklet mode would shrink them again. Booklet mode is for a document made of half-size pages in reading order.

For many copies, a reliable method is to print one perfect copy on your own printer, check it, and then make copies of it on the copier using its two-sided copying setting. Copying a paper master avoids any surprises in how the copier reads your file.

Making a longer booklet in Word: Book fold

For a booklet of eight pages or more (a cookbook, a directory, a long service), Word can do the arranging. Microsoft's steps (Microsoft Support):

Go to Layout > Margins > Custom Margins.
Next to Multiple pages, choose Book fold. Word switches the paper to landscape.
Increase the Gutter to leave room at the fold.
On the Paper tab, choose the paper size. The finished booklet is half the width of the paper: letter paper gives a 5½ × 8½ booklet.

Microsoft recommends choosing this layout before you start writing, so tables and pictures don't need fixing later. To print, Word for Windows uses Manually Print on Both Sides, flipping the sheets on the short edge; on a Mac, Microsoft's steps say to choose Booklet under Two-sided in the print settings.

In LibreOffice Writer, you make an ordinary portrait document and choose Brochure in the Page Layout section of the print window; LibreOffice arranges the pages as it prints (LibreOffice Help).

Paper and folding

Everyday copy paper works. If the printing on one side shows through to the other, a slightly heavier paper helps. Light colors like cream, ivory or pale gray look finished without hurting readability. Avoid dark or bright paper for anything with small type.

Fold one sheet at a time: line up the corners, press the middle with your fingertips, then run a ruler or the back of a spoon along the fold. For multi-sheet booklets, nest the sheets, fold them together, and staple twice along the fold with a long-reach stapler.

When it comes out wrong

The inside is upside down. Switch between short edge and long edge.
The covers are on the inside. The pages printed in the wrong order, or the sheet went back in the wrong way in manual printing. Use your pencil-arrow test.
Everything is tiny. A booklet or "pages per sheet" setting is on. Turn it off and print at 100 percent.
The edges are cut off. Choose "actual size" or 100 percent rather than "fit". Our templates keep half an inch of margin, which almost every printer can handle.
It looks different on the copier. Save a PDF and print that; a PDF prints the same everywhere.

Print one, fold it, check it, then print the rest. That one test sheet is the cheapest insurance in the church office.