Today I am going to show you how to set up a new document in InDesign which will outline the steps I took to get a 7 panel accordion fold brochure. For those of you who do not know, an accordion fold is also called a “Z” fold because it zig zags in on itself. This is useful for large brochures with the need for either large surface area or multiple panels or pages in an interesting format. Brochures and maps are very common accordion folds.

A simple 3 panel accordion fold

Step one – Determine your requirements

For this demonstration, I have determined that I need a brochure which highlights 3 panels on one side and a single big message on the back of the brochure.  This comes out to just a simple brochure like the diagram above. Some may refer to this as a two-fold accordion because of the need for just two folds in the z-fold design.

Some other information you need is the physical size requirement. We want this brochure to fit nicely into a package folder with some other material as a supporting piece for this organization. So we know it needs to be a bit taller so it can be seen, but not overpowering next to the other pieces.

Typical 9x12 Presentation folder

One way I start off with is to visualize the size it will be when folded and in the target folder. Lets choose a 9×12 folder and make this brochure 75% of that size to fit in it nicely.

So 75% of 9 x 12 is about 6.5″ x 9″. And viola we have somewhere to start from.

So now we know how big we want our brochure to be when it is all folded, This is the finished or folded size, we need to figure out how big the flat canvas is. The flat canvas refers to the brochure as it would lay flat without any folds in it. Often I take other finished brochures I find here and there and I rip them down to their flat display to see how the designer laid it out.

Since we know that we need 3 panels, we can just multiply the horizontal dimensions by the number of panels to get our flat canvas. If you wanted it to open vertical, just multiply the height instead. This will give the complete length we need to complete this brochure.

Finished (above) and Flats (below)

Step two – Fire up InDesign

Now we know our dimensions, we can start InDesign and create a new canvas. Ahh the sweet smell of…a digital canvas. Once InDesign is open, create a new canvase by choosing File -> New -> Document… and enter the following settings into the boxes.

Don’t forget your bleed settings!

Finish Line

So now we have 2 super wide pages with nothing on them. Now we need to mark where the folds must be placed. This will also define where your panels lie and then we can start placing wonderful and magical things on them.

Remember the size we settled on in the beginning? It was 6.5″ x 9″. We basically need to place guides at these measurements and repeat going horizontally. Do the same for the second page. See the diagram below.

Canvas with our three guides placed

Now you are ready to go and fill this canvas with wonderful things! When you send your final print-ready PDF to the printers, make sure you indicate or at least tell them at which points the folds are required. In this case it’s every 6.5″.

Thanks and I hope you enjoy your creating!