FLIP ON SHORT EDGE: a punk's guide to printing zines

So you want to print some zines (like the ones in The Counterforce digital distro) to distribute at a punk show or other event, or to just give out to your friends. Sick! If you are new to printing or copying zines or just need a refresher, and want to avoid frustration and wasted paper, this guide is for you.

This guide will mostly cover standard, Letter-sized-paper-folded-in-half-and-stapled style zines aka "saddle stitch" (like the Counterforce zines pictured in the header image). This is the most common type of zine you'll encounter for DIY printing. We'll go over how to look at files and make sure you've got the right ones to print, choosing paper, printer dialogue settings and some tips on finishing such as folding and stapling. Effectively we’re taking a two-dimensional file on a computer and turning it into a three-dimensional, interactive object, so there’s a little bit of thinking and spatial reasoning involved, but don't worry you'll be fine.

To follow these instructions, you'll need access to a printer or copier which has duplexing, or double-sided printing, which most modern printers do. Printing zines on a one-sided printer or copier is a great punk tradition but getting the sides to line up is some galaxy-brain shit, and while this guide might help you start to wrap your head around how that works, I'm not going to explain exactly how to do it.

If you have any feedback on this guide you can contact The Counterforce, or if you think I did a bad job explaining this you can write and submit your own guide.

The Files

Zine files are typically in .pdf format. Sometimes you’ll find one in an image format like jpeg/.jpg or tiff/.tif. Most of this info in this article will still be conceptually relevant to those kinds of files, but you might run into some other problems with printing, so it's best to find .pdfs.

Sometimes, there will be multiple versions of a particular zine. For printing, the file name will usually have the word “print” or “imposed” in it, as opposed to “read” or “screen,” which will typically not print correctly because they are formatted for reading on a screen.

Imposed just means that the file is laid out in a way where when you print it out and fold it in half, all the zine pages will be in the correct order and orientation. When you open the PDF in a program like Preview or Acrobat or in a web browser, it will seem like the pages are in a totally fucked order. But I promise there is a logic to it! The first thing you should see is a landscape (“hamburger style”) file page with two pages of the zine: the back cover (last page of zine) on the left side and the cover (zine page 1) on the right side.

Note on language: this can get a bit confusing to talk about because there are two pages of the zine on each page of the .pdf file. In this guide I'm using “zine page” to mean each 5.5 x 8.5” page of the zine, and “file page” to indicate each 8.5 x 11” page of the .pdf file.

The next page of the file should have zine page 2 on the left side and the second-to-last page of the zine on the right side.

This is the point at which you may silently thank or curse the person who made the zine for including or excluding page numbers.

Note to people who make zines: INCLUDE PAGE NUMBERS.

The subsequent pages of the file will have page 3, 4, 5, etc, of the zine alternating between the left and right side of the page. Finally, the last page of the file should have two consecutive pages, (e.g. zine page 4 / zine page 5) and it should be the only file page where this is the case. If there aren't page numbers (silently curse the designer), you can check if the content between these two zine pages flows seamlessly—maybe there's even a cool centerfold illustration, or if there is text it should continue from the left side to the right side of the file page.

Note for the aspiring D.I.Y. scissor-and-gluestick types: this is also the template for laying out a zine that you can photocopy, OR you can scan it and submit it to the Counterforce Zine Page so people in other places can print it!

If you open a file and ONLY see the front cover, and if all of the inside pages have two zine pages and content that flows from one page to the next (if there are numbers they go up sequentially), this file is not formatted for saddle-stitch printing and binding. You gotta either find the imposed version or do it yourself, which is a whole thing.

If you open a file and find a long line of single, sequentially-ordered pages, you MIGHT be able to print this zine using a setting called booklet printing. If your print dialogue has this setting you can give it a shot—your print dialogue box might even have a little preview window where you can click through the pages and see if it is all lining up correctly. I don't usually mess around with booklet printing, but it can work as long as the number of pages is a multiple of 4.

Paper size

I'm writing this from Canada, where Letter (8.5 x 11”) is the most common paper size and zine format size. Outside of North America and the Philippines, the most common paper size is called A4 (side note, I highly recommend checking out the Wikipedia page on Paper size.) I'm going to refer to North American paper sizes (Letter, Legal and Tabloid/Ledger) because that's what I'm familiar with, but a lot of the conceptual info in this guide can apply to zines laid out for A4. While the sizes are roughly similar, A4 and Letter are NOT the same height to width ratio and NOT easily interchangeable. I don't recommend trying to print A4 zines on Letter paper or vice versa. It doesn't look good and you'll probably have weird margins and too-small text, but if you or your readership have a high tolerance for those things or you're really desperate I guess do what you gotta do.

Sometimes you will find Legal (8.5 x 14”) or even Tabloid or Ledger (11 x 17”) zines. Most home and office printers can accommodate up to Legal size, since it’s the same width as Letter. Tabloid/Ledger is more rare in home printers, but your copy shop can almost certainly do it. Make sure the paper you’re printing on matches the size of the file. If you’re familiar with paper sizes or have a good eye for dimensions, you might just be able to tell the format by looking at the file, or comparing it to the illustration below, where all the formats are scaled to the same height. If you still can’t tell, you might be able to open up the first page of the file in image editing software and try to figure out the size.

Printing

Ok, now that we have the right kind of files and the right kind of paper for our files, let's print. Depending on the printer and the operating system of your computer (or photocopier) it’s gonna look really different, but there are a few settings that you should double check in your print dialogue before you send the job.

Double sided printing + Flip on Short Edge

This is the big one that you have to remember for zine printing, which is why it’s the name of this guide. When you select double-sided printing, usually “flip on long edge” is default, because that’s how vertical/portrait (“hotdog style”) regular ol’ office doc printouts work. As a punk, you might use "flip on long edge" for stuff like double-sided handbill flyers or j-cards, but for zines we always "flip on short edge."

If you still have a hard time remembering which one it is, just grab a regular half-letter zine and look at it and think about how it is structured. You can even take the staples out and flatten it and try flipping the pages both ways to see which one makes sense. Pretty much any time I get myself twisted up about layout or settings, just grabbing a physical zine and looking at it immediately answers my questions, so I’d recommend this if you get stuck.

Collate

If your printer driver has a little checkbox that says “collate,” definitely make sure it is CHECKED. If it is not checked and you print 50 copies of a zine, guess what, it’s gonna print alllll the page 1s and then allll the page 2s and so on and you’ll have to assemble them yourself. It is a lot of work, very annoying. For some reason my home printer defaults to "don't collate" and it has bitten me in the ass more than once.

Greyscale

Are you paying for copies or ink? You might want to print in greyscale (black and white) cause it’s cheaper. If you’re scamming copies (good for you) then you don't need to worry about it.

Scale

Usually I print at 100% or "actual size," but depending on the zine file and the printer’s margins, this may or may not cut off some content around the edges and you might have to scale down or choose "fit." Occasionally scaling down the zine can throw off the centre line, so you might have weirdness there. As with most things, just print and fold a test copy first to make sure everything is ok.

Note to people who make zines: most printers can’t accommodate full bleed, so please don’t put text all the way to the edge of the paper.

Orientation

This usually defaults to portrait, and technically we are printing landscape, but I am gonna be honest: I basically never touch this setting and I don't think I've ever had a problem with it on any printer ever. If you print the first page of your zine and it's oriented the wrong way, I'd just change it and see what happens.

Always print one copy before you print a bunch of copies! Check your prints throughout the print job, don’t just hit print and walk away.

Fucked up zines prints are a huge bummer cause they’re usually double-sided so you can’t even reuse the back for scrap paper. If you are patient and careful and get in the habit of checking your settings well, you'll avoid a lot of unnecessary paper waste, although some amount of waste is pretty much inevitable when printing at quantity. Don't be totally neurotic about it—it happens—but don't be sloppy or nihilistic about it either (especially if you're not paying for prints.)

Occasionally you will find a zine where the file seems OK and correct but actually it is laid out really fucked up and it won’t print well despite your best efforts. The fixes for this are beyond the scope of this article and can involve enlisting the help of someone who knows how to use design software.

Finishing

Finishing just means the stuff you do to the paper after it's done printing: for simple zines, it's usually just stapling and folding.

You can get away with not stapling or binding your zines if they’re only 1-2 sheets of paper, but for anything with multiple sheets you really should do your readers or your future self a favour and attach the pages together in the right order.

A regular stapler won’t really reach into the middle of a standard-sized zine, though many have tried to make it work by folding the cover to get it to fit in the stapler's mouth (but then your zine is kinda crumpled). Maybe this is fine for you. Otherwise, you need access to a long-arm stapler, which you might be able to check out at a library or makerspace, steal from an office supply store, or go in on purchasing with a few friends. I think they’re like $30-40 these days.

You can crease the zines first to make sure you’re stapling in the right place, or just set the stopper at 5.5” for standard half-Letter zines (or the total width of the paper divided by 2). Long-arm staplers can typically accommodate up to 25 sheets of paper with no issues.

Some people like to do other wild things like literally saddle-stitching the zines with a sewing machine or even throwing an elastic band around the middle. This is fine I guess but personally I staple.

Folding a lot of big zines can be rough on your hands. If you’re fancy you can try to find a bookbinding tool called a bone folder that is made for creasing, but the butt end of a sharpie works basically just as well and it’s really useful to have a sharpie in your distro kit anyways for stuff like making a sign that says “ZINES (A) P.W.Y.C.” (the correct way to price your zines.)

BONUS: Colour Covers

Using colour paper for covers makes your zine table look extra enticing, and IMO it is well worth the extra effort. Some really fancy printers or copiers will even have a separate tray for cover paper, although mine doesn't, so here's how I do it:

Get some colour paper. I usually like to get multipacks of the brightest colours I can find (the Astrobrights ones are really nice). Watch out, some of those packs will have super dark colours like black or dark blue that you might not be able to print on in high-enough contrast, but maybe you can find another use for them (like making a cool PWYC sign with a whiteout pen?). Make sure you pay attention to the type of paper you're getting—if you're trying to be really fancy and want to make your zines more durable you can do deluxe cardstock covers (usually 65-lb.+ or "cover" weight), but ~24-lb. "text" paper is more economical (whether you're stealing or buying) cause you get more sheets in the same sized package. Some printers don't handle heavyweight cardstock well, so also be mindful of that as it pertains to your personal setup.

You're going to be printing the first two pages of your zine PDF on the colour paper, aka one sheet front and back. In your print dialogue box, make sure the settings are the same as discussed above—double-sided, flipped on short edge, etc. Where it says "pages to print," instead of "all" we're going to select "pages" and fill in "1-2." If you are printing a zine where the inside front and back covers are blank (i.e. there is nothing on page 2 of your imposed zine PDF), you can just print page 1. Print one test copy to make sure that everything looks good, and then print as many copies of the cover as you're going to print copies of the zine. I like to count out the number of sheets of colour paper I'm going to need for the print run and load them into the feed tray so that I don't accidentally forget to switch back to white paper when the run is complete.

Next, the guts. Double check that your feed tray has white paper in it! Back in your print dialogue box, make sure all your settings are good (flip on short edge, etc). Under "pages to print" we're going to fill in "3-X", X being the last page of your PDF. Again, print one copy to make sure it works before you send the whole job with however many copies you're making, and keep an eye on the job as it's printing.

To assemble, simply lay a colour cover on top of the finished stack of guts and staple and fold like regular.