Crafting print with precision since 1989—trusted by businesses, fueled by innovation, and driven by purpose.
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Brochure panel sizes and fold dimensions, done for you. We print, fold, and mail under one roof in Indianapolis.
Pick a fold, tell us one measurement, and we calculate every panel to the nearest 1/16 inch. Nothing is stored.
Not sure? Watch the animation on the right change as you switch. Tri-fold is the classic brochure.
Width only. Height never changes when a piece folds, so any height works.
Thicker paper needs more room where panels nest inside each other, so it changes the math a little.
Flat sheet in, folded piece out.
Every fold starts as one wide flat sheet and ends as a narrower finished piece. You only ever need to know one of those two widths. Tell us either one and we calculate the other, plus the exact width of every panel in between.
Panels are not all equal. Paper has thickness, so panels that tuck inside are made slightly smaller. That is the part everyone gets wrong, and the reason this tool exists.
Page 1 outside of the sheet
Guides at
Turn the sheet over, left edge to right edge
Page 2 inside of the sheet
Guides at
★ becomes the front cover once folded · fold lines
A panel is one piece of paper with two printed faces, so these widths are the same on both pages. What changes is the order they appear in, which moves your guides.
| Page 1 (outside) | Page 2 (inside) |
|---|
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Send us this spec and we will quote the whole job. Family owned, with offset and digital presses, scoring, folding, and mailing all in one Indianapolis building. Real bindery people check your file before it runs.
Get my folding quotePick your fold type, choose whether you know the flat sheet width or the finished folded width, and enter that one number. The calculator returns the other measurement, the width of every panel, and the exact guide positions for your design file. Switch between text weight and cover weight to match your paper, since thicker stock changes fold panel measurements slightly.
These are the nine standard folds we run every day. Each animation shows the real fold motion, panel by panel. Pick one and the calculator above jumps straight to it. All examples use inches; the calculator also works in millimeters, centimeters, points, and picas.
A tri-fold folds one flat sheet into three panels, with the tuck-in panel slightly shorter than the other two so it nests cleanly inside. It is the standard brochure fold for rack cards, menus, and mailers, and a folded letter-size sheet fits a #10 envelope. On a standard 8.5 x 11 sheet folded to 3.6875 inches wide, the cover and back panels are each 3.6875 inches and the tuck-in panel is 3.625 inches on text weight stock.
A Z-fold bends the sheet into three equal panels that zigzag like the letter Z. Because no panel tucks inside another, all three panels are exactly equal and no paper thickness adjustment is needed. An 8.5 x 11 sheet Z-folds into three panels of 3.6667 inches each. Z-folds suit step by step instructions and letters with a reply form, since the piece opens flat in one motion.
A gate fold has two side flaps that swing inward and meet at the center over a full-width middle panel, opening like a pair of gates. The side flaps are each just under half the finished width so they do not collide where they meet. For an 8 inch finished gate fold on cover stock, the center panel is 8 inches and each flap is 3.9375 inches. Gate folds make a strong reveal for invitations and real estate print pieces.
An accordion fold pleats the sheet back and forth in alternating directions, so every panel is equal width and nothing nests. Four panels at 3.5 inches each need a 14 inch flat sheet, and a legal size 8.5 x 14 sheet accordion-folds into four 3.5 inch panels. Accordions work well for maps, timelines, and guides that read as one continuous strip.
The five-panel accordion uses the same alternating pleat with one more panel. Five equal panels at 3.5 inches need a 17.5 inch flat sheet. This fold carries a lot of content in a small finished footprint, which is why pocket guides and parts references use it.
A double gate (or closed gate) starts as a gate fold, then folds once more down the center so the piece closes like a book with double doors inside. The two outer flaps are slightly narrower than half the finished width and the two inner panels slightly wider, so the flaps clear the spine. An 8 inch finished double gate on text stock uses flaps of 3.9375 inches and inner panels of 4.0625 inches on a 16 inch sheet.
A roll fold wraps the panels inward like a scroll: the innermost panel folds first and each following panel rolls around it. Every panel that rolls inside must be shorter than the one wrapping it. For a 4 inch finished roll fold on text weight, the panels are 4, 4, 3.9375, and 3.875 inches, for a flat sheet of 15.8125 inches. Roll folds suit menus and self-mailers that unwrap one message at a time.
The five-panel roll continues the scroll one more turn, so each inner panel steps down by one paper thickness. At a 4 inch finished width on text stock the panels run 4, 4, 3.9375, 3.875, and 3.8125 inches on a 19.625 inch sheet. Getting these decreasing panel sizes right is exactly what folding tolerances are about, and it is the fold most often set up wrong in supplied files.
A double parallel fold folds the sheet in half, then in half again in the same direction, nesting one bi fold inside another. The inner pair of panels is slightly wider than the outer pair so the layers sit flush. A 4 inch finished double parallel on text weight uses outer panels of 3.9375 inches and inner panels of 4.0625 inches on a 16 inch flat sheet. It is a favorite for rack brochures and pharmaceutical inserts.
Paper has thickness. When one panel folds inside another, the inner panel travels a slightly tighter path, so it must be cut slightly narrower or its edge will buckle against the fold. Printers call this nesting, and the small size reduction is the printing fold allowance. At Printing Partners we allow 1/16 inch per nest on text weight paper and 1/8 inch per nest on cover weight. That is why a tri-fold tuck-in panel is 1/16 inch shorter than the cover, and why each panel of a roll fold steps down as it moves inward. Folds where nothing nests, like the Z-fold and accordion, use equal panels with no allowance. This calculator applies the correct allowance for every fold and paper weight automatically, and it always guarantees the panels add up exactly to the flat sheet width.
This is the error we correct most often in supplied files. When you turn a flat sheet over, the panels read in the opposite order, so the fold positions measured from the left edge move. On a tri-fold from an 8.5 x 11 sheet on text weight stock, page 1 guides fall at 3.625 and 7.3125 inches, while page 2 guides fall at 3.6875 and 7.375 inches. Copying the page 1 positions onto page 2 shifts every inside panel by one paper thickness, and the inside content will not line up with the folds when the piece comes off the machine.
The rule is simple: page 1 panels read left to right in fold order, and page 2 panels read left to right in reverse fold order. The panel widths themselves never change, because a panel is one piece of paper with two printed faces. Only the order changes, and that moves the guides. The calculator above prints both guide sets and flags whether they differ for your fold, so you can set each page correctly the first time.
Folds with equal panels, including the Z-fold and both accordion folds, use identical guides on both pages because reversing equal panels changes nothing. Folds with unequal panels, including the tri-fold and both roll folds, always need mirrored guides on page 2.
Reviewed by the Printing Partners bindery team, July 2026.
Bookmark this page for panel sizes and fold dimensions. If you also build books, our perfect bound spine calculator works the same way: enter your page count and interior stock, and it returns the exact spine width plus a full cover spread with hinge lines and guide positions.
Both tools use the real measurements our bindery runs to, not generic averages. Between them you can set up a folded piece or a bound book without guessing at a single dimension.
Open the spine calculator