Trifold vs Z fold brochure: the difference

Same six panels, different paths

Lay an A4 sheet on its side and divide it into three columns, front and back, and you have the six panels both folds share. What changes is the route through them. With a trifold, the sheet is folded so the right panel wraps over the middle and the left panel wraps over both, leaving a front cover, a back panel and a flap that opens first. A reader sees the cover, lifts the flap, then opens the whole inside spread of three panels. With a Z fold, each fold goes the opposite way from the one before, so the front cover and the back panel sit on opposite faces and the brochure pulls straight open. Vistaprint's guide to brochure folds describes the Z fold as opening sequentially, which is why it suits timelines, processes and schedules.

Why the panels are not always equal

In a Z fold nothing tucks inside anything, so the three panels can be exactly equal: 99 millimetres each on A4. In a trifold the panel that folds inside has to be slightly narrower, or it catches on the fold and makes the brochure bulge. Printivity's comparison gives the figures for a US Letter sheet: two panels of 3.688 inches and a tucked panel of 3.624, about 1.6 millimetres narrower. On A4 a common set up is 100, 100 and 97 millimetres. The exact numbers depend on paper thickness, so the print shop's template or measurements take priority over any general rule. Getting this wrong is visible: text on the tucked panel runs into the fold or the flap refuses to lie flat.

When to choose each fold

A trifold is the familiar choice for service brochures, menus, patient information and travel guides, because almost everyone knows how to open one and the flap gives a natural place for a teaser before the main spread. It also fits a DL envelope and a brochure rack once folded, at roughly 99 by 210 millimetres. A Z fold suits content with an order: a program of events by day, a treatment journey in stages, installation steps or a product roadmap, where each panel follows the last. It is also used for mail inserts because it opens easily in the hand. Both cost about the same to fold on a machine. Gate folds and double parallel folds make a bigger reveal but take more careful layout and usually more expensive finishing.

Common mistakes

The most common is putting the front cover on the wrong panel. In a flat trifold file the cover is the right hand panel of the outside face, not the left, and the back of the brochure is the middle panel. The second is using equal thirds for a trifold, so the tucked panel buckles. The third is running text or a key image across a fold, where it breaks or cracks; keep a few millimetres of clear space either side of every fold line. The fourth is folding heavy stock without scoring, which cracks the ink along the crease. The last is not printing a single sheet, folding it by hand and checking the order of the panels before ordering hundreds of copies.

Folded brochures in the flyer builder

Two designs in the flyer library are drawn as trifold content, an inside and an outside, both A4 portrait at 1240 by 1754 pixels with three stacked bands, which is trifold content on a portrait sheet rather than a folded spread. There are no fold guides, no panel gutters and no three panel spread template, so a real six panel brochure is set out by hand. Use A4 landscape, 1754 by 1240 pixels: equal thirds are 584, 585 and 585 pixels, with fold lines at 584 and 1169, which suits a Z fold. For a trifold, narrow the tucked panel by about 3 millimetres, roughly 18 pixels at this canvas density. Mark the lines with thin shapes and delete them before export. Build the outside and inside as two pages; the PDF export writes both into one file.

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