It's easy to make a zine, especially if you're literally cutting and pasting images and text onto papers and making "Xerox" copies, old-school style.
You can also design your zine digitally and print as needed. I prefer to create and curate my content for traditional size of 11 x 8.5, folded in half.
That's how I like to create zines now: by using Canva. However, it takes a little planning at the start to get your pages set up in the correct order.
The part of zine making that twists my brain the most is the page numbers. So, to help myself, and to help Y'ALL out, I've created this guide for getting the pagination right when you're creating a zine digitally to be printed.
To Format/Make a Zine in Canva
First, some things to know:
For clarity, a "sheet" is a piece of physical paper.
A zine "page" is one side of a sheet folded in half.
A Canva "page" is one side of a digital sheet of paper.
- Each sheet of landscape 11 x 8.5 paper, folded in half, gives you 4 zine pages.
- That's because there's room for two pages on each side of the sheet when printed.
- Therefore, you can only have zines with a page count that’s divisible by 4.
For example, one sheet of paper (folded in half) makes a 4-page zine. Two sheets make an 8-page zine. Three sheets make a 12-page zine, and so-on.
Pages 1 and 12, when printed double-sided with pages 2 and 11, give you one sheet of paper that will be folded in half and will make your front/back cover, and two inner pages.
Pagination for common zine lengths:
12-page zine (3 sheets of landscape paper)
1 and 12 (front cover/back cover)
2 and 11
10 and 3
4 and 9
8 and 5
6 and 7 (middle)
16-page zine (4 sheets of landscape paper)
1 and 16 (front cover/back cover)
2 and 15
14 and 3
4 and 13
5 and 12
6 and 11
10 and 7
8 and 9 (middle)
20-page zine (5 sheets of landscape paper)
1 and 20 (front cover/back cover)
2 and 19
18 and 3
4 and 17
5 and 16
6 and 15
14 and 7
8 and 13
12 and 9
10 and 11 (middle)
I'd like to add that there's no shame in making yourself a little paper zine baby that you can literally mark the page numbers on so that you have a physical example to refer to if needed.
Here, you can see how I took some note paper and stapled together some sheets to make a micro-zine that I could write page numbers on.
Printing Your Zine
To get the pages to print correctly two-sided, first you'll need to name your pages in Canva! That way, when you download them, they'll already be in correct order in the zip file you'll extract them from.
Here is the naming scheme as shown for the 12-page zine version:
Add a Letter to each page name:
A 1 and 12 (front cover/back cover)
B 2 and 11
C 10 and 3
D 4 and 9
E 8 and 5
F 6 and 7 (middle)
HOW TO DO THIS:
In Canva, you're gonna choose a blank flyer in landscape. You now have 1 page in Canva (which is 2 zine pages).
Then you'll add 5 pages to the first blank page by clicking the "+" button.
Now you have 6 blank pages, total. If printed two-sided, this equals 3 sheets of physical paper.
For all documents, Canva automatically names each page "Page 1, page 2, page 3," etc. You can customize the name of each page.
What WILL show up in the file name(s) is the page names you created ("A 1 and 12").
Now, you need to name those sheets of digital paper. Follow this scheme:
- The first page you're gonna name "A 1 and 12."
- The second page you're gonna name "B 2 and 11."
- The third page you're gonna name "C 10 and 3."
- And so on and so forth until you've named all of your pages.
Here's some examples from a 16-page zine:
In this image, you can see some in-between pages from a blank zine template I made in Canva.
Page 7, when folded in half will show pages 7 and 10. When printed correctly after downloading, your two-sided paper will have pages 7 and 10 on one side, and pages 8 and 9 (the middle of your zine) on the other side.
You can staple them together with all the other pages to form your completed printed zine.
After you've filled in these blank pages with your content, choose "Share."
Then download as jpeg files or PDF. Open your Downloads folder and you'll see a zip file. Extract the files, and open the extracted folder.
Since you put letters alphabetically in front of your page number names, the files will be in the correct order in your downloaded folder!
Other Zine Questions
How do I bind the pages together?
Easy, I use a long-reach stapler like this one.
You could also use embroidery floss and sew your pages together using a pamphlet stitch.
There's also the option of making a one-sheet mini-zine that doesn't require any staples or floss. Learn how to make one of those.
How many pages long should you make your zine?
It all depends on what you have to say and how much room you need to say it. Maybe start with a 12-page zine. That's three sheets of regular paper, front & back. You can grow from there.
How do I let people know about my zine?
Give them a copy!
Mail copies to your friends and people you think would enjoy it. Share a pic of your zine on social media. Interested folks will ask you about it and you can share it with them.
Once you have a following, you could start selling your zines. Or, even better, trade your zine for someone else's zine. Share the love!
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Zine-making is a fun and creative way to express yourself that doesn't require social media or anyone else's platform. Learn more about zines and their history.
I hope this guide helps to explain how to set up and print your zines using Canva.