Guide · Updated 27.10.2026

How to print a zine at home: 8 pages, one sheet, one cut

The quickest zine there is needs one sheet of paper, a printer and a pair of scissors. Eight small pages are printed on one side of a single sheet, and a few folds plus one cut turn it into a little booklet. This layout is known as a PocketMod, and it works on any home printer: no duplex, no stapler.

The short version

1. Make eight pages in any program and export them as one PDF: front cover, six inside pages, back cover.
2. Lay them out for the fold. In BookletPro, open the PDF, choose PocketMod zine, and generate. All eight pages land on one sheet, in the right places and the right way up.
3. Print one side only, at actual size (100%). Letter or A4, whatever is in your printer.
4. Fold, cut once, fold again, as in the steps below.

Designing the pages

Each panel is one eighth of the sheet:

• On US Letter a page is 4.25 × 5.5 inches.
• On A4 a page is 105 × 148 mm, which is A6.

Design your pages portrait at that shape, or at any larger portrait size; they are scaled down to fit. Keep text and important details a little away from the edges: the folds run right along them, and a home printer cannot print to the very edge of the sheet. If you have fewer than eight pages, the rest stay blank.

Why half the pages print upside down

Look at the printed sheet and the bottom row of pages is standing on its head. That is correct. When the sheet is folded, that row is turned over, and every page ends up upright in the finished zine. Do not rotate them back.

Folding it, step by step

Lay the printed sheet in front of you, landscape, print side up. First crease it along all the panel lines, folding back and forth once on each line, so the later folds are easy. Then:

1. Fold the sheet in half, left to right.
2. Cut from the folded edge along the middle, halfway in. Only the middle line, and only as far as the centre of the sheet.
3. Unfold, then fold in half lengthwise with the print outside.
4. Push both ends towards the middle: the cut opens up into a diamond.
5. Fold the panels round so page 1 is at the front.

BookletPro can print light fold and cut lines on the sheet, so you know exactly where step 2 goes. They are on by default and can be switched off for a clean edge.

Printing more than one

A zine is one sheet, so copies are cheap: print the sheet as many times as you need, or take the PDF to a copy shop and ask for single-sided copies at 100%. Thicker paper (100–120 gsm) feels better in the hand but makes the cut and the folds a little harder; normal copy paper is fine.

Questions

Is it free?

Yes. The PocketMod zine mode, including the fold and cut guides, is free in BookletPro on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android and in the browser.

Do I need a duplex printer?

No. A PocketMod is printed on one side of one sheet.

My zine has more than eight pages.

Then a folded, stapled booklet is the better format: see how to print a booklet from a PDF. If the page order of a booklet looks wrong on screen, that is expected.

Is my PDF uploaded?

No. Everything happens on your device, or inside your browser tab in the web app.

Make your zine

Eight pages, one sheet, one cut.