If you are considering printing a brochure or booklet with multiple pages, then you may be required to supply your artwork in printers pairs. An easy way to explain this is to make a paper mock-up or your booklet which will help identify the pages which need to sit next to each other once the document has been printed and stapled together. For this example we’ll use a 8 page A5 booklet to demonstrate. If you take an A4 sheet of paper and fold it in half, this creates an A5 4 page folded leaflet.

Do the same to another sheets of A4. Lay these on top of each other and you should then have 3 folded sheets of A4, giving you 8 pages of A5. Then go back to the front sheet or ‘page 1’, and write on it page 1, turn over and write in the inside left hand cover page 2, and all the way through the booklet to the back page which is Page 8.

Then if you take apart your pages you will see that certain pages sit next to each other, for example Page 2 needs to print opposite Page 7, Page 3 with Page 6, and the centre double page spread is pages 4 & 5.
These are your ‘Printers Pairs’. This shows how the pages are ‘planned’ to be printed in relation to each other in order to print a brochure or booklet and have all the pages in sequence.

Here are some more visuals to help explain a 12 page and a 16 page document.

By multiplying the individual sheets of paper with increase the page number of the document. But bear in mind they must consist of the 4 page sets, anything less than 4 and they won’t be able to be stitched (stapled) together.

Dean Williams

Dean Williams is a design and marketing blogger working for Print-Print Limited, promoting business and building brands through quality print marketing. If you’re interested in small business promotion then please get in touch hello@print-print.co.uk