Printing Your Zine
Your zine downloads as one PDF, already arranged onto sheets in fold order. No Booklet setting, no guessing. Pick your printer and follow the steps.
One landscape sheet holds two of your zine pages side by side, with a fold line down the centre.
Your pages are already in the right order. Print the sheet, fold it in half, and you have a booklet — no rearranging.
Two ways to do it, depending on your printer. Pick yours.
Most home printers are double-sided. Not sure? Start there.
If your printer prints both sides, this is the simple path.
Open the PDF and choose Print.
Print double-sided. When asked which edge to flip, choose short edge (sometimes "flip on short side"). This keeps the back of every sheet the right way up.
Leave Booklet OFF, and set scale to 100% or Actual size — not Fit to page. Your zine is already arranged, so it prints like a normal document.
Stack the sheets in the order they printed, fold the whole stack in half down the centre, and staple twice along the fold.
No double-sided printer? You print one side, flip the stack, and print the other. The PDF is already arranged for this.
Open the PDF and choose Print. Set scale to 100% or Actual size, with Booklet OFF.
Print odd pages only (sometimes "Odd" or "Front sides"). These are the fronts of your sheets.
Take the whole printed stack, turn it over, and put it back in the tray. Which way you flip depends on your printer, so a quick four-sheet test tells you fast.
Print even pages only, with Reverse order checked. These land on the backs, in the right order.
Fold the stack in half down the centre and staple twice along the fold.
If the backs come out upside down or out of order, flip the stack the other way, or toggle Reverse order. One test run sorts it for good.
However you printed, the finish is the same: fold the stack in half down the centre, and staple twice along the fold.
Two staples on the spine hold a small zine perfectly. A crisp fold does most of the work — more on that just below.
A few small things that make a home-printed zine feel finished.
01Paper weight
Regular printer paper is around 80 gsm and folds beautifully for a small zine. For a little more body, try 100 to 120 gsm. Much past that and most home printers start to struggle, and the fold fights back.
02A word on creep
On thicker paper or longer zines, the inner pages poke out a little past the fold. That's creep, and it's normal. Trim the open edge flush if it bothers you, or leave it — it's part of the handmade look.
03The fold
A bone folder gives you a crisp, flat crease and is worth the few dollars. The back of a spoon works too. Fold slow, press firm, run the edge along the whole crease.
04No long-reach stapler?
Lay a regular stapler open and flat. Put an eraser under where the staple will land, press the staple through into the eraser, then fold the two legs down by hand.
Printing at home is half craft, half trial and error. Your first one teaches you the rest.