Options for Making Printed Brochures Booklets for Businesses

Brochures and booklets are great ways for businesses to market themselves and share information. Learn more about your many printing options.

Options for Printed Brochures and Booklets

Brochures and booklets are great ways for businesses to market themselves and share information. Learn more about your many printing options.

Brochures are a tried-and-true method for businesses to market themselves to potential customers. Trade shows and other events offer opportunities to get marketing materials into people’s hands. A brochure lets you tell people who you are and what your business does in an informative and eye-catching way. Booklets allow you to provide even more information to people. With the help of a professional print shop, you can do it in style. Read on to learn more about your options when it comes to brochures and booklets.

Brochures and booklets: What’s the difference?

The main difference between a brochure and a booklet is length.

A brochure is typically a single piece of paper that may or may not be folded. It offers a quick overview of its subject matter.

• A brochure is typically a single piece of paper that may or may not be folded. It offers a quick overview of its subject matter.
• A booklet consists of multiple pages. It allows you to delve further into a topic, while still not overwhelming the recipient with information.

Brochures are effective as a marketing tool. They allow you to present essential information to consumers with the hope that this will entice them to seek out more information or contact you.

Booklets can be useful for a wide range of purposes, including marketing. You can use them for anything that involves more information than you could fit on a single page, but which does not require an entire book or a reference to a website. Possible uses for booklets include product manuals, employee handbooks, training manuals, reference guides, and theater or event programs.

What are my options for brochures?

Brochures often consist of a single piece of paper, although you could also present potential customers with a larger brochure booklet. You have options regarding the size and weight of the paper, the number of folds, and whether to use glossy or matte paper.

You want sufficiently heavy paper to make your brochures look professional and durable. If you want a folded brochure, however, the paper cannot be too heavy. Weight figures for paper are based on the weight of a stack of 500 sheets. For brochures, you might consider 70-, 80-, or 100-lb. paper.

The size of the paper that you need may depend on how you plan on folding your brochures. The more folds, the larger the paper might need to be. Common paper sizes include: 

• Letter (8.5” x 11”)
• Legal (8.5” x 14”)
• Ledger (or tabloid) (11” x 17”)

Possible brochure styles include the following:

• No fold: An unfolded sheet of letter paper is a flier, not a brochure, but you can use smaller paper, such as 3.5” x 8.5” or 5.5” x 8.5”. Skipping the folding stage can save you some money since the printer will not need to use the folding machine.Legal (8.5” x 14”)
• Bifold: A brochure that consists of a piece of paper folded once in half is sort of like a booklet with only two pages and a cover.
• Trifold: This is a common folding style for brochures. It involves folding a piece of paper in thirds, with the right side of the page folded under the left side. If you plan on mailing your brochures, this is a convenient style since it matches standard envelopes.

Booklet options: paper, binding, and more

Booklets often consist of two kinds of paper. The cover consists of heavy paper stock, while the pages are lighter — and therefore less expensive. The heavier cover protects the other pages.

A simple booklet might consist of a letter-size card stock cover and ordinary office paper folded in half and stapled. You have many more options, though, that can make your booklet look much more professional and appealing.

Your booklet could use letter-size paper with a portrait or landscape layout. This might work well in professional settings since the booklet will fit with other documents. A booklet using paper that is larger than letter size is possible but not very common. You can use custom paper sizes that are smaller than letter size to give your booklet a more artistic feel.

The number of pages in your booklet may affect your options when it comes to the size and weight of the paper and the type of binding. Many bindings have both a minimum and a maximum number of pages. The specific number will depend on the weight of the paper stock.

You can choose between matte or glossy paper for the cover. For the booklet pages, uncoated paper may also be an option.

The following are common binding options for booklets:

• Saddle stitch: This is one of the most popular and least expensive binding styles. We print four pages of your booklet on a single sheet of paper — two pages on each side. When all the pages are ready, we fold everything in half and staple or stitch them together along the fold. Because of the need to fold the paper, saddle stitching cannot accommodate booklets of more than a few dozen pages.
• Coil binding: This method uses a plastic or metal coil to hold the pages together. Formatting this type of booklet is simpler since no more than two pages are on a single sheet of paper. The length of the booklet is limited to the size of the coil. The largest available coil can support a total thickness of up to 2¾”.
• Perfect binding: Most professionally-bound paperback books use perfect binding. It involves wrapping the cover around the pages and using glue along the spine to hold everything together. This binding method can give your booklet a very professional look.

Get professional-grade brochures and booklets

There are a lot of options for brochure and booklet creation. Let AlphaGraphics take your ideas and make them tangible.

AlphaGraphics North Austin provides cutting-edge printing and graphic services to businesses throughout the Austin area. We can create unique, eye-catching graphics in a wide range of media to help you market your business and provide information to your customers. Contact us today to get a quote!