Print production · page counts
Get the page count right.
Enter your page count to see how many sheets a saddle-stitched booklet needs, how many pages will be blank, and which pages share each sheet side. Perfect-bound? Switch to signatures.
Your booklet
Plan
Enter a page count to see sheets, blanks and imposition.
How the numbers work
A saddle-stitched booklet is folded sheets nested inside each other. Each folded sheet makes four pages, so the total must be a multiple of four: sheets = ceil(pages ÷ 4), total = 4 × sheets, blank pages = total − pages. For an n-page booklet, sheet k (1 is the outermost) carries pages [n − 2k + 2 | 2k − 1] on the outside and [2k | n − 2k + 1] on the inside. Blank pages are the highest page numbers, at the back, unless you rearrange them.
Creep (shingling). Inner sheets sit further out as the stack is folded. This page uses a simple model, not a printer’s value: sheet k shifts by (sheets − k) × the thickness of one sheet, using the thickness you enter. It only appears when you type a thickness; nothing is assumed. Printers’ own imposition software may compensate differently, so ask your printer.
Signatures. For perfect-bound books, pages are grouped into signatures of 8, 16 or 32; the last signature is padded with blanks. Confirm which signature sizes your printer runs.
Limits: printers set their own minimum and maximum page counts and binding rules; one printer lists booklets of 8 to 64 pages in 4-page steps. This tool does not build a print-ready PDF.
Sources checked 30 September 2026: Overnight Prints booklet guide (each folded sheet makes four pages; page counts rise in multiples of four) and Wikipedia: Folio (a once-folded sheet carries four pages). The imposition order and creep formula are our arithmetic, verified by test.