Plain Dharma
中

Print

Print it at a copy shop

These teachings are public domain. Take the two files below to any copy shop and print as many copies as you like — for a temple, a retreat, a reading group, a friend. No permission needed, and nothing owed.

Interior

1.6 MB

52 pages · A5 · black & white

The book itself. Prints two-up on A4, double-sided.

Covers

1.9 MB

2 pages · A4 · colour

Front and back, in colour, with crop marks. Print on card.

Show this to the shop

Everything they need, in the order they’ll ask for it.

Finished size
A5 — 148 × 210 mm. Two A5 pages fit one A4 sheet exactly.
Interior
52 pages, black & white, on your standard paper. Print 2-up on A4, double-sided, then cut each sheet in half. That’s 13 A4 sheets per copy.
Covers
2 pages, full colour, one per A4 sheet, on card (around 250gsm). Trim to the crop marks — 148 × 210 mm.
Binding
Perfect bind, or staple along the binding edge. The inside margin is 20mm, so nothing is lost in the gutter.
Scaling
Print at 100%. No “fit to page” and no shrink-to-fit — the pages are already the right size, and scaling them throws off the cut.
Imposition
The interior pages are in reading order, not imposed. Use your own booklet or 2-up setting to arrange them — it knows which way your printer flips.

A few notes

The page count is a multiple of four. Four A5 pages fit on one A4 sheet printed both sides, so 52 pages comes out to exactly 13 sheets with nothing left over. If you edit the book, keep that true or the last sheet will be half empty.

The covers are a separate file on purpose. Shops run colour and black-and-white as different jobs on different paper. Handed one mixed PDF, they’ll usually print all 52 pages in colour — which is the expensive way to find out.

Why A5? It’s a standard size everywhere outside North America, and two A5 pages tile an A4 sheet with nothing wasted. The type is set at 12pt, larger than most paperbacks, because these are often read aloud and passed around.

Printing at home instead

The same book is on the download page as a plain PDF — better suited to a desktop printer, where you’d rather have one page per sheet than cut anything in half.

Changing it

Everything is CC0 — translate it, re-typeset it, put your own temple’s name on it. The source text and the build scripts are on the remix page, and the illustrations and fonts come with it.