Funeral Program Sizes

Every standard size, in inches

These are the formats print shops and funeral homes recognize by name. The flat sheet is what goes into the printer; the finished size is what a guest holds.

Everything above prints on paper you can buy at a grocery store except the tabloid bi-fold. Prayer cards and bookmarks are usually printed several to a letter sheet and cut down, and the prayer card size guide has the cutting layouts.

Bi-fold: the standard program

One letter sheet, one fold down the middle, four panels of 5.5 by 8.5 inches. It is the format funeral homes print by default, and it is the right answer for most services.

The reason it works is the panel width. At 5.5 inches, a line of type holds roughly ten to twelve words, which reads comfortably. An obituary of 250 to 300 words fills one inside panel. An order of service of fifteen to eighteen lines fills the other. That is the shape of an ordinary funeral, so the format and the content fit each other without anyone having to compromise.

Printed double-sided, the sheet carries the front cover and back panel on one side and the two inside panels on the other. Which panel lands where is easy to get wrong at the printer stage; the panel-by-panel format guide shows the layout for each side.

When bi-fold is not enough

Two signs you have outgrown it: the order of service runs past twenty lines, or you want more than two photographs. Adding a second folded sheet turns it into an eight-page booklet without changing the finished size, which is usually easier than switching to a tri-fold.

Tri-fold: more panels, narrower

The same letter sheet, held landscape and folded twice, gives six panels of about 3.67 by 8.5 inches. On legal paper the panels grow to 4.67 by 8.5 inches, which is a meaningful difference and worth the extra cost if your printer takes legal.

Tri-fold suits a service with distinct parts: a photo panel, a scripture panel, an order of service, a panel of names. It suits a long obituary badly. At 3.67 inches a line holds about seven words, so paragraphs break into short ragged lines and a 300-word obituary spills across two panels.

The one technical detail

On a tri-fold, the panel that tucks inside has to be slightly narrower than the other two, usually by about an eighth of an inch, or it buckles against the fold. Print shops handle this automatically. If you are making it yourself on ordinary paper, the paper is thin enough that you can ignore it. On card stock you cannot, and you should let a shop set it up.

Booklet: when there is more to say

A booklet is folded letter sheets nested inside each other and stapled on the fold. Each sheet becomes four pages, so the page count is always a multiple of four: 8, 12, 16. The finished size stays 5.5 by 8.5 inches, the same as a bi-fold.

Eight pages is the useful size. A common arrangement is cover, obituary, order of service, two facing pages of photographs, a poem or psalm, pallbearers and interment details, then acknowledgements on the back. Twelve pages is possible for a long life with a lot of photographs. Sixteen starts to feel like a yearbook, and the folded edge gets thick enough that the inner pages stick out.

Page order

The pages do not print in reading order. Page 1 shares a sheet with page 8, page 2 with page 7, and so on. Do not work this out by hand. In Microsoft Word, Layout → Page Setup → Margins → Multiple pages → Book fold does it for you. Any print shop does it as a matter of course. If you build the program in Reposa the imposition is already handled in the PDF you download.

One more booklet detail: on thicker stock, the inner pages push out slightly when folded, so the outer edge gets trimmed after stapling. That is called creep, and it means you should keep text at least a quarter inch from the outside edge on every page.

Single sheets, bookmarks and oversized

Single sheet, 8.5 by 11 inches, printed both sides. No folding, no assembly, and it is a complete program. Front: photo, name, dates, service details, order of service. Back: obituary, survivors, acknowledgements. This is the format to choose when the service is in two days and nobody has slept.

Half-sheet bi-fold, finishing at 4.25 by 5.5 inches. A small, quiet program for a graveside service or a short memorial. Two print on a single letter sheet, so a hundred programs takes fifty sheets.

Memorial bookmarks, 2.5 by 8 inches. Handed out alongside the program or instead of one. Photo and dates on one side, a verse or short poem on the other. Three fit on a letter sheet.

Tabloid bi-fold, finishing at 8.5 by 11 inches. Large, formal, and generous with type size, which matters if the congregation is mostly older. Most home printers will not feed 11 by 17 paper, so this is a print shop format. Budget for it being more than twice the cost of a letter program.

How much actually fits on a panel

These figures assume a serif typeface at about 10.5 point with normal line spacing and half-inch margins, the settings a program normally uses. They are approximate, and the point of them is to tell you whether your content fits before you spend an evening laying it out.

Two adjustments worth knowing. Moving from 10.5 point to 12 point, which is a kindness to older readers, costs roughly a quarter of the capacity. And a photograph 3.5 inches wide on a 5.5 inch panel takes up about a third of that panel, so a panel with a picture holds closer to 180 words than 300.

If your obituary is longer than the panel allows, cut the obituary rather than shrinking the type below about 9 point. Nobody reads 8 point in a dim church. The obituary examples include short versions written to fit a panel.

Choosing a size in two minutes

1. 1

   Count your order-of-service lines

   Write the service out as a list: every hymn, reading, speaker and prayer, one line each. Under twenty lines, a bi-fold works. Over twenty, you want a booklet or a tabloid. The order of service guide has the usual sequence if you have not written it yet.

2. 2

   Count your photographs

   One or two: bi-fold. Three to six: tri-fold or an eight-page booklet. More than six: put them in a slideshow and keep two in the program. A program crowded with small photographs prints worse than you expect.

3. 3

   Decide how long the obituary runs

   A 300-word obituary needs a full bi-fold panel. If it runs to 450 words, either cut it or move up a format. Both are fine.

4. 4

   Look at who will be reading it

   An older congregation reads 12 point comfortably and 10 point with difficulty. If most guests are over seventy, choose the format that lets you set the type larger, even if that means fewer words.

5. 5

   Check what you can actually print and fold

   If you are printing at home tonight, letter bi-fold or a single sheet. If a shop is printing, anything on this page is available. The printing guide covers paper weight, quantities and folding.

You are allowed to do less than you think here. Size is the decision families spend the longest on and guests notice the least. A single sheet with the name, the dates and the order of service is a complete, dignified program, and it is the one people at the service will actually be able to read.

Margins, folds and the safe area

Whatever size you choose, these are the numbers that keep the finished program from looking homemade.

The last step is the one that catches everything: print a single copy on ordinary paper, fold it by hand, and read it out loud. Folds land in the wrong place, panels come out upside down, and a date is wrong on more first drafts than not. It takes four minutes and it is the difference between finding the mistake now and finding it in a box of two hundred.