Print & stitch your book at home
You’ve got the PDFs. In about 15 minutes, with a printer and a stapler, you’ll have a real little book to flip through at the kitchen table. Here’s exactly how.
What’s in your download
Your email contained two PDFs — we kept them separate so you can print them on different paper if you want:
- cover.pdf 1 sheet, A4, landscape. The full colour wrap-around cover (front, spine, back). Print this on the heaviest paper your printer will accept — 160–200gsm if you can, or just regular paper if not.
- interior.pdf The inside pages, already laid out in the correct booklet order. Print this on standard 100–120gsm white paper, double-sided, short-edge binding.
What you’ll need
- A home printer that can print A4, double-sided (or you can do it manually)
- A4 paper, 100–120gsm for the inside pages (regular printer paper works too)
- Slightly heavier paper or card for the cover — 160–200gsm if you have it
- A long-arm stapler, OR a regular stapler and a flat surface (we’ll show you a trick)
- Scissors or a craft knife to trim the edges (optional, makes it look tidier)
Four steps to a finished book
Print the interior
Open interior.pdf. In the print dialog, set:
- Paper size: A4
- Print on both sides: Yes
- Binding edge: Short edge (flip on short side)
- Scale: 100% / Actual size — not “fit to page”
No double-sided printer? Print all the odd pages first, flip the stack, feed it back in, then print all even pages. Test with two sheets first so you learn which way your printer pulls paper.
Print the cover
Open cover.pdf. The cover is one A4 landscape sheet — the front, spine and back are already arranged side by side. Print:
- Paper size: A4, landscape
- Single sided
- Scale: 100% / Actual size
- Paper: the heaviest your printer accepts (160–200gsm card is ideal)
Tip: If the cover looks washed out, switch your printer to “Best” or “Photo” quality and try again.
Stack & fold
Lay the interior sheets in order, face-up, all the same way around. Place the cover face-down underneath the stack (so the front-cover artwork ends up on the outside when you fold).
Fold the whole stack in half along the short edge — like closing a book. Run your thumb or the back of a spoon firmly along the spine to crease it.
Sanity check: Open it up. Page 1 (your child’s name page) should be the first thing inside the front cover. If not, the stack is upside down — just flip it and refold.
Stitch (staple) the spine
With the book open flat at the centre spread (the middle of the book), place two staples through the fold — one about 3cm from the top, one about 3cm from the bottom.
If you have a long-arm stapler: easy — just staple through the crease as if it were a regular sheet.
If you only have a regular stapler: open the stapler flat (most staplers swing all the way open). Lay the book open on a thick eraser, a stack of folded towels, or a piece of soft cardboard. Press the stapler down through the fold — the eraser lets the staple legs pop through. Then flip the book and bend the staple legs closed with your thumb or the back of a spoon.
Close the book, press the spine flat, and you’re done.
Optional: trim the edges
Saddle-stitched booklets always end up with the inner pages sticking out slightly past the outer ones. If it bothers you, take scissors or a craft knife along a ruler and trim a few millimetres off the open edge (the side opposite the staples). Looks shop-bought instantly.
If something looks off
- The pages came out in the wrong order.
- The interior is already imposed for booklet printing — do not tick “booklet” or “two pages per sheet” in the print dialog. That would re-impose an already-imposed file. Just print it as a normal double-sided A4 document.
- The text or images are cut off at the edges.
- Make sure the print scale is set to 100% / Actual size, not “Fit to page” or “Shrink to fit”. We’ve built the bleed into the file already.
- The double-sided pages don’t line up.
- Choose Short edge / Flip on short side binding. “Long edge” will print every other page upside down.
- My printer won’t take card for the cover.
- That’s fine — print the cover on regular A4 paper. The book still looks lovely; it’ll just be a touch floppier at the edges.
- The staples won’t go through.
- Your stack is probably too thick for a standard stapler. Either use a long-arm stapler, or use the “eraser trick” in step 4 — pressing into something soft gives the staple legs somewhere to go.
- I lost my PDFs.
- Within 30 days of purchase, the download link in your email still works. After 30 days we’ve deleted our copy in line with our privacy promise — so please save the PDFs to your cloud drive or photo library as soon as they arrive.
Hand it over and watch what happens.
You just made something real out of a stack of phone photos. Tag @memoricol if you share it — we love seeing them in little hands.