Make a PDF booklet to print

How to make a PDF booklet

Choose your file, or drop it on the box above, and pick the paper size you will print on.

Choose which edge the booklet is bound on and which edge your printer flips the paper on. The preview shows the first sheet's front and back as you change them.

Select Make booklet, then download the new PDF.

How to print a booklet

Open the booklet PDF and print it on both sides of the paper (two-sided, or duplex, printing), at actual size or fit to page.

Set the printer to flip on the short edge. If your printer can only flip on the long edge, choose Long edge here before you make the booklet: the back of every sheet is then turned so it still prints the right way up.

Keep the printed sheets in order, fold the stack in half along the middle, and staple two or three times along the fold.

No two-sided printer? Print the odd pages of the PDF, put the printed stack back in the tray as your printer's manual shows, then print the even pages.

Booklet page order, explained

Every sheet carries four pages, two on each side, so a booklet has a multiple of 4 pages. When your file does not, blank pages are added at the end.

In an 8-page booklet, the first sheet has pages 8 and 1 on its front and pages 2 and 7 on its back; the second sheet has pages 6 and 3, then 4 and 5. Folded, they read 1 to 8.

For Arabic, Hebrew, Persian or Japanese books, which open on the right, choose the right edge and every side's pages swap places.

Thick booklets: signatures and creep

A stack of more than about 10 sheets is hard to fold flat. Choose signatures to split the pages into groups of sheets: fold each group on its own, stack the groups in order and bind them together.

When a thick booklet is folded, its inner sheets stick out further at the open edge, and trimming cuts more from them. Creep moves the pages of inner sheets towards the fold, up to the amount you set for the innermost sheet, so the margins line up after trimming.

Text stays text

The pages are not turned into pictures. Text stays sharp at any zoom and you can still select, search and copy it, and drawings stay sharp too.

Comments and filled-in form values that show on the pages are drawn onto the sheets. Links, form fields and bookmarks do not carry over, since the pages have moved.

Your file never leaves your device

The booklet is made in your browser with pdf-lib. No file or file name is sent to us or to anyone else. pdf-lib loads only after you choose a file, so this page stays fast.

A file protected with a password opens once you type its password on this page, and the booklet is protected with the same password.