Tri-fold, roll fold, Z-fold or concertina — which leaflet fold is which?

Folded work arrives described in two vocabularies at once. One specification reads “A3 tri-fold, roll fold, double sided”, as though those were two instructions. The next asks whether a tri-fold is the same thing as a letter fold, or leaves the choice between a Z-fold and a half fold open. All of them are asking the same thing underneath: how many creases, and which way does the sheet close.

Which fold is which?

Counting creases settles the naming faster than any of the trade words do: no crease is a flat flyer with two sides, one crease is a bi-fold with four panels, and two parallel creases give six panels either way the sheet is folded. What separates a tri-fold from a Z-fold is not the number of panels but whether the sheet wraps around itself or zig-zags. The names below are the ones we use on leaflet specifications — a tri-fold here is the three-panel roll fold, and the three-panel concertina is written as a Z-fold. The trade uses the same words more loosely, which is why a specification is worth stating in creases and panels as well as in names.

Why a roll fold is not three equal thirds

On a tri-fold the panel that tucks inside has to be narrower than the two panels wrapping over it, because a panel cut to the same width as its neighbours cannot sit inside them and still let the leaflet close square. A Z-fold never meets that constraint: the sheet folds one way and then back the other, so nothing sits inside anything else and all three panels stay the same width.

Tell us the fold and we set the panel widths. What matters in the file is that the fold positions are stated rather than implied — a layout drawn as three equal thirds and labelled “tri-fold” needs checking before production.

What the fold changes in the artwork

Folded artwork carries the same requirements as a flat flyer — 3 mm of bleed on every edge, text kept 5 mm clear of the trim, CMYK rather than RGB, 300 dpi measured at the finished size — plus one that only folded work has, which is marking the fold positions. Send the file even where there is doubt about it: we check bleed, resolution, embedded fonts and page size before anything goes on press, and a reply in the evening is faster than a re-export in the morning.

Grain, and the white line through the ink

Folding with the grain of the sheet helps produce a clean crease; folding across the grain on a heavy uncoated stock can crack along the crease and show a white line through the ink. That is why nearly every sheet in our stock list is ordered short grain rather than whatever arrives, and why a job needing the other direction is written that way on the order. The full range, with grain direction and sheet sizes, is in our paper stocks guide — the 170 gsm uncoated sheet is listed there for covers, folded leaflets and menus.

The stock choice on the flyer page runs 130 gsm gloss, 170 gsm silk and 300 gsm card, with 150 gsm silk or gloss as the standard same-day stock; gloss lifts photography and silk is easier to read a block of text on. Availability of any particular sheet is confirmed when we quote. The practical version for anyone sending artwork is one sentence: tell us where the folds go, and we will pick the sheet to suit them.

Which fold suits which job

A4 folded to DL is the standard where the piece has to fit a DL envelope or a DL leaflet rack, because the folded piece ends up at the size those were built for — check the finished size against the envelope or the rack you are actually using, since both come in other sizes. Past that, the choice follows how the piece will be opened rather than how it looks closed.

• Handed out in the street, one message — flat, single or double sided, trimmed as a stack so every copy in the run is the same size to the millimetre.
• Posted or racked — A4 rolled down to DL, so it fits the envelope and sits in the rack with the front panel showing.
• Read in one movement on a table — a Z-fold, because it opens flat instead of having to be unwrapped panel by panel.
• An evening menu, a programme, a short list — a bi-fold, the fold behind most printed menus and folded invitations.
• More content than these formats hold — consider a saddle-stitched booklet instead of a single folded sheet; the deadlines for those are in our next day booklet guide.

What goes wrong on folded work

Folded jobs fail on a short list, and the expensive one is the fold itself: a crease landing a millimetre off where it belongs makes every copy in the run wrong at once, which is why a sample matters more here than on flat work. When a restaurant sent forty menus for printing on the afternoon of the event, the file arrived at 13:09, we printed one copy first and sent it for approval, the approval came back at 14:03, and the run was printed, folded and delivered the same afternoon.

The rest are ordinary: artwork built at the exact finished size with no bleed behind it, a panel layout drawn as equal thirds for a fold that cannot have them, a heavy uncoated stock folded across the grain, or six separate pages with no indication of which panel is which. Each costs a question and a reply, and some cost a rebuilt file or a different stock; on urgent work the questions are what move the deadline. Same-day production is subject to that day's capacity and confirmed at quotation — the clock is in our print delivery guide.

Checklist before you send folded artwork

• The fold, named — flat, bi-fold, tri-fold (roll fold) or Z-fold (concertina).
• Flat size and finished size — for example A4 folding to DL, or A5 folding to A6.
• Fold positions marked in the file, rather than left to be worked out from the layout.
• Sides — single or double sided, stated rather than implied.
• Stock — gloss or silk, and the weight if the piece has to feel substantial.
• 3 mm bleed on every edge, and text 5 mm clear of the trim.
• Quantity, and the date and time the leaflets have to be in your hands rather than the date of the event.
• Whether you want a sample before the run — on folded work a sample shows the colour, the stock and where the crease actually lands.

The fold, the size, the stock and the quantity all move the figure — quantities and prices are on the flyer and leaflet printing page, what drives print prices generally is in how much printing costs in London, and the overnight route is on the 24 hour printing page. Flyers and folded leaflets are produced same-day at our 24/7 London print shop, subject to that day's capacity and confirmed at quotation, alongside the brochures that take over when one sheet stops being enough.