How to supply folded and perforated leaflets

Folded Leaflets

Artwork for Folded Leaflets is the same as regular flat products. The artwork is to be designed 'flat', showing more than one panel per designed page, with essential elements avoiding the folds and edges. You don't need to supply us folding guides for our standard folds - please contact us if you are designing a file that needs custom folding.

Download one of our Folded Leaflet InDesign Templates to base your design on. The fold marks and quiet zones provided in the design templates are to help with design, and do not appear on printable artwork.

File Supply

The outside design should be supplied as page 1 and the inside design as page 2. You can supply two seperate PDF files or 1 PDF with 2 pages.

PDF Page 1 (Outside)                                  PDF Page 2 (Inside)
End Panel, Back Panel, Front Panel     Inside Left, Middle, Inside Right

 Example of an A4 Folded Leaflet (A4 Roll-Folded to DL)

Our most popular folds

Approved Custom Folds

If you require an Approved Custom Fold from the list below please contact us. Custom Folds carry an additional cost and add 1 working day to your order.

    •    A2 to A5 - A2 concertina folded to 148x420mm, then half folded to A5.
    •    A3 to DL - A3 half folded to A4, then roll or Z folded to DL.
    •    A3 to A5 - A3 landscape half folded to 420x148mm, then half folded to A5 landscape.
    •    A3 to A6 - 4 panel concertina fold, then half folded to A6.
    •    A4 to A7 - 4 panel concertina fold, then half folded to A7.
    •    A4 to 99x105mm - 3 panel roll or concertina fold, then half folded to 99x105mm
    •    A4 half folded to A5 and half folded again to 74mm x210mm

Prohibited folds

• Gate folds
• Cross fold then half fold (e.g. A2 cross fold, then half fold to A5)
• A1 to A5
• A2 to DL
• A2 to A6
• A5 roll folded
• 6 panel DL Roll Fold - 594x210mm roll folded to 1/3rd A4
• 6 or more Folded Panels (Except 6 Panel DL Concertina Fold)

Supplying Custom Folds

Please supply your files using a 1.5mm bleed. We do not require Crop/Trim Marks or Folding Guides to be present on your artwork, just email us the panel dimensions your require, with the measurements taken from left to right for page 1 only.

For example:
Custom size = 287 x 210mm (290 x 213mm including 1.5mm bleed)
Finished Panel Dimensions = 89mm (End Panel) / 99mm (Middle Panel) / 99mm (Front Panel).

Check panel sizes

A mistake commonly made with Folded Leaflets is to design incorrectly sized panels for the product’s fold type, resulting in the product looking unusual, e.g. short front panels, panels missing their folding line, front-to-back misalignment, and even mixed-up panels. Please ask us for a template to avoid fold alignment issues.

Keep essential elements away from edges and folds

Respect the Quiet Zones by keeping text at least 4mm away from the folds – these Quiet Zones are identified on the Quiet Zone layer of the templates.

‘Front cover panel’ backgrounds

We recommend that ‘Front cover panel’ backgrounds should overlap the fold. When designing Folded Leaflets with a front panel background that is close to the fold, ensure that the picture overlaps the fold by 1 mm. This allows for production tolerances when folding, and prevents a contrasting stripe (from the adjacent reverse panel) from showing on the front face of the finished Folded Leaflet.

Cracking

When paper is folded, its interlinking fibres are compressed on one side and stretched on the other. If the outer fibres lose their hold on each other, we see this as 'cracking': an opening out of the paper on the outside. This will be more visually apparent where the design includes a dark colour across the fold. If dark colours are required please upgrade to a Laminated Product which will help to reduce the appearance of cracking. (This also affects Folded Flyers which go through the same process)

Indicate the front panel

To indicate your intended front panel to us, just add a 0.25pt red keyline around the outer three edges of your front cover. This won't be visible once your folded leaflet has been printed.

Create a physical mock-up

We'd recommned that you produce a working mock-up of the design yourself (there is no requirement for this to be sent to us though). This often gives an indication of what makes a well-balanced layout, and might also catch layout errors.

Perforated Folded Leaflets

Folded Leaflets with Easy Tear-off Panel

Some Folded Leaflets can have a perforated easy tear-off panel, the sizes available are: A3, A4, A5, 2 panel DL, 3 panel A5, 3 panel A6, 4 panel A6, and 4 panel DL. Advice on artwork and file supply is the same as Folded Leaflets above.

There are 3 options for the position of the perforation;

• Front panel;
• End panel, or
• In half.
   

The template below for a 3 panel fold has the front panel as the tear-off panel, indicated by a 0.5pt green dashed line on the page edge.

 

We have templates available that are specific to Perforated Folded Leaflets, please ask us for a copy.

Perforated Leaflets

Standard perforation positions

Perforated Leaflets are the same as our range of 150gsm Gloss and 170gsm Silk flat Leaflets, but with an added perforation.To indicate your choice of perforation, please add a 0.5pt green dashed line to the page edge.

There are 2 fixed half perforation options available:

• Half Perforation - Parallel to the long edge of the page
• Half Perforation - Parallel to the short edge of the page

The ‘Half Perf’ options will always be dead centre of the short or long edge. This example on the right shows the green dashed line on the right short side of the page, this will have a perforation applied to  the centre of the page parallel to the short edge of the page.

The 1/3rd Perforation is always made parallel to the short edge and is available on A3, A4 and A5. The position of the perforation for each size is:

• A3 Perforated at 140mm from specified short edge
• A4 Perforated at 140mm from specified short edge
• A5 Perforated at 140mm from specified short edge

Custom perforation positions

Please ask us if you want a different position for your perforation.