How Many Ways Can You Fold a Sheet?

Customers see the traditional half-fold or letter fold for nearly every advertisement that comes their way. If you want to get creative and show customers that you’re willing to think outside of the box, use one of these five sheeting folding techniques for your next flyer, brochure, or direct mail piece to get their attention.

1. Z-fold

This fold creases the paper into three panels in opposite directions so that from the top edge, it looks like the letter Z. When opened, the sheet unfolds like a poster. This option works great if you want information shown chronologically or if you want images across the entire sheet. You can also use it to nest multiple pieces, such as when you want to include a reply envelope.

2. Accordion fold

Commonly used for maps or instructions, this fold uses a series of parallel folds so that the sheet opens like an accordion. Because many large panels can be folded inward, accordion folds let you use larger paper sizes while including more information than a standard finished size. This option works well for brochures, maps, and instruction panels.

3. Gate fold

For this, you fold two sides of the paper toward the middle like two doors opening and closing. You might use this fold to create a silly greeting card or an invitation with doors opening into a grand ballroom. Or you might present information like opening a book. You have many options with this creative fold!

4. Half-accordion fold

Here you fold the paper in half vertically, then fold one half vertically again. You could use this for sitemaps, room layouts, landscape designs, or even engineering plans.

5. Half-plus-letter fold

This option combines the half-fold and the letter fold. To do it, fold the paper into four equal sections. When you’ve folded half of the paper equally, tuck the folded half into a letter fold. This is great for newsletters, since it lets you fold a legal-sized sheet down into #10 envelope size in a user-friendly way.

Connect with us

Ready to take your printing to the next level? Contact us today at (501) 443-1780 to get started!