Plain Dharma
中

Print

Print it at a copy shop

These teachings are public domain. Pick a size, take its two files 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.

Three sizes

The same book, set in the same 12pt type, on three different pages. Each size is two files: a black-and-white interior and a colour cover sheet.

The opening page of chapter one at all three trims, side by side and to scale: A5, B6 and A6.
The same page at all three sizes, to scale. Printable size guide (A4, at 100%)

A5

The reading size

148 × 210 mm

Half an A4 sheet. It sits open on a table and reads like an ordinary paperback. Take this one unless you have a reason not to.

Interior

1.6 MB

52 pages · A5 · black & white

The book itself. Prints 2-up on A4, double-sided.

Covers

1.9 MB

2 pages · A4 · colour

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

B6

Pocket paperback

125 × 176 mm

The size a pocket paperback usually is. Longer lines than the A6, so it reads closer to the A5, and it still travels. The catch: B6 isn’t an A size, so it doesn’t tile A4, and a copy takes more paper than either of the others. Worth asking whether your shop offers B6 as a finished size.

Interior

1.6 MB

60 pages · B6 · black & white

The book itself. Prints 2-up on A4, double-sided.

Covers

1.5 MB

2 pages · A4 · colour

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

A6

Pocket size

105 × 148 mm

Half an A5 again — small enough for a shirt pocket. The type doesn’t shrink with the page, so the book runs longer; but four pages fit on a side instead of two, so a copy takes fewer sheets of paper, not more.

Interior

1.6 MB

72 pages · A6 · black & white

The book itself. Prints 4-up on A4, double-sided.

Covers

1.3 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 fit an A4 sheet exactly, so there is nothing to measure.
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

Each page count is a whole number of sheets. An A4 sheet printed both sides holds four A5 pages, or eight A6 ones, so each interior is padded out to fill its last sheet exactly. If you edit the book, keep that true or the final sheet comes out part 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 the whole interior in colour — which is the expensive way to find out.

Why these three? A5 and A6 are standard everywhere outside North America, and both tile an A4 sheet with nothing left over — two up for A5, four for A6. B6 doesn’t: it’s the classic pocket-paperback size, and it buys longer lines than the A6 on a page that still travels, but printed two-up it leaves a margin on every A4 sheet to throw away. The type is set at 12pt on all three, larger than most paperbacks, because these are often read aloud and passed around. That’s why the pocket edition is longer rather than more finely set: the page gets smaller, the words don’t.

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 up.

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.