Printing the diary
For the A5 booklets: you print on A4 landscape, fold every sheet once, put the sheets inside each other and staple them. Four settings decide whether it works.
The four settings
- Size‘Actual size’ or 100 %. Not ‘Fit to page’ and not ‘Shrink’ – otherwise the margins are off and the pages don’t line up after folding.
- Both sidesPrint on both sides and flip on the short edge. With ‘long edge’ every back page is upside down.
- Quality‘Normal’ or ‘Standard’, not ‘Draft’. Draft saves ink, but the fine grey lines disappear.
- ColourGreyscale for everything – unless you have a photo on the cover. Then print the first PDF page in colour and the rest in greyscale.
One test sheet first
Print only the first two PDF pages, that is one sheet, and fold it. Are the margins the same on both sides? Is the back the right way up? If so, print the rest. If not, one of the four settings is still wrong – and you have only used one sheet.
Paper
Ordinary matt copy paper will do. At 90 to 100 g/m² less shows through, and nine sheets still fold nicely; thicker paper makes the booklet bulge. A quarter is one booklet of 11 or 12 sheets, a full year four booklets, about 33 sheets in all.
Folding and stapling
At the bottom of each sheet it says ‘Booklet 1 · Sheet 3’ in small print – so you know which sheets belong together. Fold each sheet in the middle on its own and press the fold with your thumbnail. Then put the folded sheets inside each other, sheet 1 on the outside, and staple twice through the fold. A long-reach stapler gets to the middle; an ordinary one works too if you lay the open booklet on thick cardboard and staple through the fold from the outside.
In the stable
A clear A5 book cover, like the ones for school exercise books, keeps dust and damp out. Write in pencil: it doesn’t smudge when the page gets damp, and it writes in the cold too.
No printer at home?
Take the PDF on your phone to a copy shop and say: ‘Both sides, actual size, flip on the short edge.’ That’s all they need.
Would you rather print A4 for a ring binder? Then you flip on the long edge and punch the wide margin – the detailed printing tips from Horse Logbook explain it.