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Booklet Maker (Saddle-Stitch Imposition)

Fold-and-staple booklets: notebook or calendar pages imposed in the right order.

More options

About the paper thickness (0.1 mm for 80 g/m²) for thick booklets.

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Try an example: 16-page dot-grid pocket notebook · 2027 pocket calendar (12 months, 3 sheets) · Right-bound 8-page lined booklet with creep

More about this tool

How it works

Make a saddle-stitched booklet: pages of grid, dot or lined paper (a notebook) or a month-per-page calendar are padded to a multiple of four and printed two per sheet side in booklet order, with optional creep compensation, page numbers and fold marks. Prints double-sided, flip on the short edge.

  • Pages are padded with blanks to a multiple of four. Sheet k (from the outside) carries pages (n − 2k, 2k + 1) on the front and (2k + 2, n − 2k − 1) on the back — Panelcraft’s booklet order; right-edge binding swaps each pair.
  • Each page is scaled uniformly into half of the landscape sheet and centred; with creep compensation the pages of sheet k move k × creep towards the fold, because inner sheets stick out further after folding.
  • The PDF alternates front and back of each sheet: print double-sided, flipping on the short edge, then fold the stack and staple along the fold.

Duplex settings differ between printers: print the first sheet and check the page order before printing all.

Sources

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How to use the Booklet Maker (Saddle-Stitch Imposition)

Impose notebook pages or a pocket calendar in fold-and-staple order with blank padding, creep compensation, page numbers and fold marks.

What it is for

A booklet folded from A4 sheets needs its pages in a strange order: page 16 next to page 1, page 2 next to page 15. This tool builds those pages — ruled notebook pages or calendar months — and imposes them in saddle-stitch order, two pages per side of each sheet. You print the PDF double-sided, fold the stack and staple along the fold.

It adds blank pages when the page count is not a multiple of four, shifts inner pages for paper thickness (creep), and prints fold marks and page numbers. It does not import existing PDFs; for comics, use Panelcraft's book plan.

Worked example

A 16-page dot-grid notebook on A4 gives 4 sheets. The page-order table shows sheet 1 with pages 16 and 1 on the front and 2 and 15 on the back, down to sheet 4 with 10 | 7 and 8 | 9 — the centre spread where the staples go. The PDF has 8 landscape A4 pages (297 × 210 mm), each holding two A5 pages.

A calendar booklet for 2027 has 12 month pages, so 3 sheets with no blanks.

For a right-to-left binding (Arabic or Hebrew booklets) with 8 lined pages, sheet 1 reads 1 | 8 on the front and 7 | 2 on the back: everything is mirrored.

With 10 pages and 0.1 mm creep, the tool pads to 12 pages and warns "Blank pages added to fill the last sheet: 2." The table shows those blanks next to pages 1 and 2 on the outer sheet, so the last page of the content sits inside the booklet.

How to read the result

  • Booklet pages: the page count after padding; blankPages says how many were added.
  • Sheets: physical sheets of paper — four booklet pages each.
  • Page order per sheet: what sits left and right on the front and back of each sheet. Check it against your first printed sheet.
  • Pages and page size: the PDF pages, two per sheet (front and back).
  • Files: the PDF, plus SVG and PNG of the first page. Open in the app loads the booklet into Printshop.

Tips and common mistakes

  • Print double-sided and flip on the short edge. Flipping on the long edge turns every back side upside down.
  • Print one sheet first and check that page 2 is behind page 1.
  • Creep of about the paper thickness (0.1 mm for 80 g/m² office paper) keeps the outer edges in line once the booklet is folded; thin booklets need none.
  • More than about 10 sheets (40 pages) of office paper gets hard to fold — split the content into two booklets.
  • Use a long-reach stapler or open a normal one and staple into a soft surface.

FAQ

Why are blank pages added?

Each sheet carries four pages, so the total must be a multiple of four. Blanks go at the end of the content.

What does creep compensation do?

Inner sheets stick out further at the open edge after folding. Shifting their pages towards the spine by a fraction of a millimetre per sheet evens that out.

Can I make an A6 booklet?

Yes — choose A5 as the sheet size; each page is then A6.

How many pages are possible?

Up to 200 pages, but plan more than 40 as separate booklets.

Guide last updated:

For scripts and AI agents

  • JSON API: POST https://printshopbooklet.usefulweb.app/api/v1/calculate (same calculation as this page)
  • Interface description: OpenAPI 3.1 · AI guide: llms.txt
  • MCP server (Streamable HTTP): https://printshopbooklet.usefulweb.app/mcp · tool name printshop_booklet
Example request
curl -s -X POST https://printshopbooklet.usefulweb.app/api/v1/calculate \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"source":"ruled","pages":16,"kind":"dots"}'
Feedback · ideas & bug reports welcome