How to print and bind a coloring book at home

You can print and bind a coloring book at home three ways. For a real booklet, print the pages double-sided in booklet order (Word and the free LibreOffice Writer both do this), fold the stack in half and staple along the fold. For the easiest version, print one-sided, punch holes and put the pages on binder rings. For a book you want to keep, slide finished pages into sheet protectors in a binder. All three use what most homes already have.

This guide is about the printing and binding. If you still need the pages themselves, start with the guide to making a coloring book from photos or the free photo-to-coloring-page guide.

Choose your binding first

Binding	Best for	You need	Lies flat?
Saddle stitch (folded and stapled)	A small book that feels real, gifts	Duplex or manual two-sided printing, long-reach stapler	Fairly, when opened in the middle
Ring binding	Toddlers, growing collections	Hole punch, two or three binder rings	Yes
Binder with sheet protectors	Finished pages, keepsakes	Three-ring binder, sheet protectors	Yes
Print shop coil or comb	Longer books	A trip to a copy shop	Coil does

The binding decides the page size. A saddle-stitched booklet folds letter paper in half, so each page ends up half-letter (5.5 x 8.5 in). Ring and binder books keep the full 8.5 x 11 in sheet, which leaves more room for big shapes and small hands.

Saddle stitch: a folded, stapled booklet

Plan the pages in fours

Every folded sheet carries four pages: two on the front and two on the back. So a booklet's page count is always a multiple of four. Eight pictures plus a cover and a blank back works out to 12 or 16 pages, depending on how you place blanks (see the next step).

The layout trick that stops bleed-through

A printed book puts pictures on both sides of each sheet, which is a problem with markers. The fix is simple: put coloring pictures on odd-numbered pages only and leave every even page blank. In a folded booklet, the front of each leaf is an odd page and the back is an even page, so each picture gets a sheet to itself. A small booklet of 8 pictures becomes 16 pages, which is four sheets of paper.

If your kids only use crayons, you can skip the blanks and use both sides.

Booklet printing in Microsoft Word

Microsoft's instructions for Word for Microsoft 365, 2021 and 2024 are: go to Layout > Margins > Custom Margins, and set Multiple pages to Book fold. The orientation switches to landscape on its own. Increase the Gutter to leave room on the inside fold, and check the paper size, since the finished booklet is half that size.

To print, go to File > Print. On a Mac with a printer that prints both sides automatically, Microsoft says to set Two-sided to Booklet. On Windows, its steps say to choose Manually Print on Both Sides and feed the stack back in when Word prompts you, flipping the sheets on the short edge as your printer's manual shows. Microsoft's own class booklet template uses the same approach: print double-sided on the short edge, fold the stack in half and staple along the fold with a long-reach stapler.

Booklet printing in LibreOffice Writer (free)

LibreOffice's help describes it this way: lay the document out in portrait, then choose File > Print, open your printer's Properties and set landscape, and use the "duplex, short edge" setting if your printer prints both sides. Back in the Print dialog, in the Page Layout section, select Brochure, include odd and even pages, and print. For a printer that only prints one side, print the front sides first, reinsert the whole stack, then print the back sides. If the order comes out wrong, LibreOffice suggests ticking Print in reverse order and printing again.

Fold and staple

1. Print one test copy before the whole run, and check that page 1 lands on the front and the pages read in order.
2. Stack the sheets, fold them in half together, and crease the fold with the back of a spoon.
3. Staple two or three times along the fold with a long-reach stapler, legs pointing in.
4. No long-reach stapler? Open the booklet face down over a piece of corrugated cardboard, open a regular stapler flat, push the staples through the fold into the cardboard, then lift the booklet and bend the staple legs over with a butter knife.

A cardstock cover makes a booklet much sturdier. Print the cover sheet separately on heavier paper, then nest the inside pages into it before stapling. The paper guide covers which weights your printer can feed.

Ring binding: the toddler-proof option

This is the one I would pick for a one- or two-year-old.

1. Print every page one-sided at full letter size. The printing guide covers settings that keep lines black.
2. Add a cardstock front and back cover.
3. Punch two or three holes along the left edge. Line the pages up against the punch guide so the holes match.
4. Thread binder rings through, or tie loops of yarn or ribbon.

Pages flip all the way around so a child can color on a flat table, a finished page can come out to go on the fridge, and new pages can go in.

Sheet protectors and binders: for finished pages

Once pages are colored, a three-ring binder with clear sheet protectors turns a pile into a book you can keep on a shelf. It also protects crayon from smudging. Some families slide uncolored pages into protectors and use dry-erase markers, so the same page can be colored again; test your markers on one protector first, since not all wipe clean.

When to let a printer do it

For a longer book, a copy shop can add coil or comb binding to your printed stack. Or skip the home printer entirely: print-on-demand services print single copies from a PDF. Lulu lists saddle-stitched booklets in half-letter and US Letter sizes, and for coloring books it offers a coil-bound US Letter format designed to lay flat.

Colorkin's printable PDF works with any of the methods above, and its printed keepsake arrives already bound, but the point of this guide is that you do not need either. More free guides are under make your own.

Questions parents ask