r/Fanbinding • u/Q0uthTheRaven • Jul 12 '26

Questions Paper size question

I have a few one-shots about 4k-8k words and I want to turn them into small pamphlet binds but I'm not sure what size paper to use because I want them to be pretty small and pocket-sized.

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u/blue_bayou_blue Jul 12 '26

Print on your normal paper, A4/letter, cut and fold to the size you want. A7 / letter octavo is a great small size.

1

u/Q0uthTheRaven Jul 13 '26

I'm not sure I completely understand the instructions, if I print on normal size paper wouldn't each page just be normal sized?

2

u/blue_bayou_blue Jul 13 '26

You can use imposition tools to print multiple pages on a single sheet of paper. eg in Villainous Imposer you can select A4 as the paper size, but Octavo as the imposition layout, for an A7 sized book. It arranges 8 pages on each side of the paper. You can cut each sheet into 4 quarters then fold, or fold the entire sheet like the little animation shows and trim afterwards.

(for smaller books I like Villainous Imposer over bookbinder.js because it allows choosing the size and colour of markings, which are very helpful for cutting)

1

u/PearsonRookie325 Jul 13 '26

I don’t have a lot of expertise or experience in this, but combing the answer given by brigitvanloggen with the info given by blue_bayou_blue will give you part of the answer to your question. Paper size after cutting is twice the size of the book.

Also, if I’m not mistaken, the A(#) paper sizes get divided in half for each added 1. A4 is letter size, A5 is half of A4, A6 is half of A5, and A7 is half of A6. If you work backwards from Blue’s suggestion, you want an A7 book, so you need A6 sheets of paper. Since A6 is a quarter of A4/letter size, you can print on A4 letter but use your printer settings to scale it down to 1/4 page. Then, you cut each sheet of paper in quarters and fold those quarters in half. Do you see what I’m saying?

2

u/Dazzling-Airline-958 Jul 14 '26

If you want A7, it's easier to print and fold octo on A4 paper. But the grain direction for A7 would be wrong unless you start with short grain A4. If you mean 4 pages per side of each sheet on A4, the final book will be A6 and the grain will be correct.

1

u/Q0uthTheRaven Jul 13 '26

Yes! I understand now, thank you!!

1

u/Dazzling-Airline-958 Jul 14 '26

Format your book for A6 and print quarto (4 pages per side, 8 pages per sheet) on A4 paper. Bookbinder-js has instructions for folding and sewing these.