Format, Print and Assemble a hand-sewn Booklet

Greetings, fellow makers!
This instructable will teach you how to format, print and assemble a handy booklet from any PDF document.

You will need the following tools & supplies:
- printer & paper
- scissors
- a strong thread, preferrably of white color
- a needle
- an awl or a long, thin nail
- a bone folder or an object of similar shape

[ Edit ]
Somehow, the whole text for the introduction got deleted. I don't know how, but I actually had to write it all over again. Oh well ...

Step 1 Preparing a non-PDF document

If the document you desire to turn into a booklet is not a PDF-file, we need to turn it into one. If you have written or copy-pasted the document text in Open Office, you can just use the PDF Export function to get the PDF file we need.

For other file formats or older Microsoft Word Versions that do not support PDF Export yet, you can simply use a virtual PDF printer. A PDF printer is a programm that installs a virtual printer on your system. You can choose to print documents with it like with any normal printer, but instead of producing blackened and colored paper-pulp in meatspace it coughs up an A4 PDF file.

Personally, I favor the official PDF Distiller from Adobe, but since it belongs to the rather expensive Adobe Acrobat Suite, you might want to go with a freeware alternative if you do not have access to the Suite (I got mine from university). In the past, I've used the free PDF Printer from Bullzip and I was quite pleased by it's performance.

You can get it here: http://www.bullzip.com/products/pdf/info.php

There are, of course, other free PDF printers around. If you can recommend a good one, please share your knowledge in the comments :)

Comments

[PaisleyCat]

The free booklet creator only allowed 16 pages =(

But excellent instrucatable!

Ruth