Everything you need to know about roll fold leaflets

Since there several ways of folding which are quite similar in the way they are used, there is often some confusion about them when ordering folded leaflets. To make sure that you know which folds you’re talking about, I’m going to take you through the three most common folds in detail: roll folds, z-folds, and gate folds. My focus today will be on roll fold leaflets, and I’ll give you some valuable tips on how your print files will need to be set up; in other posts, I’ll devote my attention to z-folds and gate folds.

The spiral or roll fold is a common form of parallel fold – so called because all of the folds are made in the same direction. Let’s take a typical six-side flyer (three interior and three exterior sides), known as the letter fold: in this fold, the two sides to the left and right of the central side are folded onto this side with no change in direction. This two-crease fold is exactly how a standard A4 letter is folded, hence the name “letter fold”.

A spiral fold can have more creases, however, to produce a higher number of sides. The diagram below shows how a three-crease fold gives a total of eight sides. This is often known as a “tri-fold”.

Producing correct printing files for letter folds

The first step in producing a folded leaflet using the letter fold is to decide on how you want to distribute your content. Try to bring together your text and images into thematic blocks as this will help you to decide how many sides you need, and make sure your images are spread evenly across the sides to avoid having too much text without visual points of interest.

Once you’ve decided on your format, here are a few very important things to remember:

• If you are producing a 6-sided leaflet (letter fold), the sides which will be folded in first (sides 4 and 5 – interior and exterior respectively) need to be 2 mmshorter than the other two parts of the sheet: if you don’t do this, your flyer won’t sit flat and you will get unwanted twists in the paper. The diagram below shows you how your sheet needs to be set up.

• If you are producing a closed format 6-sided leaflet using the letter fold on A4 paper, the closed format measurement is 100×210mm. This means that the first side to be folded in needs to be 3mm narrower so that the sides measure 100mm, 100mm, and 97mm, adding up to the full 297mm of an A4 sheet.
• If you are creating an 8-sided leaflet (tri-fold), the first side to be folded in needs to be 4mmnarrower and the second 2mmnarrower.

• If you are creating an 10-sided leaflet, the first side to be folded in needs to be 6mm narrower, the second 4mm narrower and the third one 2mm narrower.

General advice about your print files

• All your print files should include a bleed of 3mm (see the diagrams).
• All of the text and images must be situated at least 3mm from the cropping margin – i.e. your objects need to be moved 3mm inwards if they are too close to the edge. This all-round margin will give your final product overall coherence, and you should keep to it unless some of your images cover two adjacent sides, of course.
• To avoid white stripes along the edge of the folded leaflet once it has been cropped, make sure you extend background images or colour areas into the cropping margin.
• You might find guiding lines or markers for your folds useful while designing your flyer, but remember to remove them before you go to print to avoid them appearing on the finished product
• We would recommend producing a trial folded leaflet or dummy with the creases you intend to use; this will help you get an idea of how the finished flyer will sit in your hand.
• You should send the final print files in closed file formats that cannot be altered: Saxoprint currently accepts five file formats for print, which are PDF, JPG, TIFF, EPS and PS (PostScript).
• It is a good idea to have two separate files for the interior and exterior sides to avoid any possible confusion; be sure to mark the side each file applies to clearly in the files names (e.g. OurFlyer_interior.pdf and OurFlyer_exterior.pdf).