Free bulletin template for Word (half-fold, Letter and A4)

A half-fold bulletin is the most common printed document in a small office, and one of the easiest to get wrong in Word. This is how the format works, and how to produce one without fighting the software.

What a half-fold bulletin is

One sheet of paper, printed on both sides, folded down the middle. That gives you four pages: a front cover, two inside pages and a back.

On US Letter, the sheet is 8.5 × 11 inches and each finished page is 5.5 × 8.5 inches. On A4, the sheet is 210 × 297 mm and each page comes out at A5, which is 148 × 210 mm.

It is the standard for a reason. It is one sheet, so it costs one sheet to print. It needs no staples and no folding machine — you fold it by hand in about a second. It holds roughly as much as people will actually read in one sitting. And it sits comfortably in a coat pocket or a hymn book.

The four-page shape also maps neatly onto what most offices need to say: who you are and what today is on the cover, the substance inside, and the practical details on the back.

What is in the free template

The free download is a Word template (.dotx) for a half-fold bulletin, supplied in both sizes: a US Letter version and an A4 version. Pick the one that matches the paper in your printer and ignore the other.

Inside, it is set up as a four-page booklet with sample text you replace: a cover with room for your organisation’s name, the date and an image; two inside pages with headings and body text; and a back page laid out for notices and contact details. It uses Georgia and Calibri, which already come with Word, so there is nothing to install.

You can get it here.

How to open a .dotx without breaking it

A .dotx is a template, not a document, and the difference matters.

Double-click the file. Word does not open the template itself — it creates a brand-new, untitled document that is a copy of it. You type into the copy, save the copy, and the template stays pristine for next week. That is exactly what you want: no more “save as, then remember not to overwrite last week’s file.”

If you ever want to change the template itself — to put your logo on it permanently, say — open Word first, then use File > Open and pick the .dotx deliberately. Otherwise, just double-click and start typing.

Filling it in

1. Click on any sample text and type over it. The styling stays; only the words change.
2. To change a picture, right-click it and choose Change Picture. Word drops the new image into the same frame at the same size, which is what keeps the page from rearranging itself.
3. Save your copy with the date in the filename, such as bulletin-2026-10-11. A folder of those, sorted by name, is its own archive.

Resist the urge to nudge things. If a heading looks wrong, change the style rather than the individual line — that way next week’s copy inherits the fix.

How the file is laid out

Before you print, it helps to know what you are looking at, because it is not four pages in a row.

The template is two landscape sheets, and each sheet is split down the middle into two panels:

• Sheet 1 is the outside: the back page on the left, the front cover on the right.
• Sheet 2 is the inside: page 2 on the left, page 3 on the right.

That is called an imposed layout, and it is already done for you. Printed on both sides and folded once, the panels land in reading order: cover, page 2, page 3, back page.

This is why the cover is on the right-hand side of the first sheet and the back page is on the left. On screen it looks wrong. Folded, it is right.

Printing it as a booklet

Because the file is already imposed, there is no page setup to do. Do not turn on Word’s Book fold option — that would impose the document a second time and shuffle your panels.

1. In the print dialog, choose to print on both sides.
2. Choose Flip on short edge. This is the setting that matters. Flip on the long edge and the inside comes out upside down relative to the cover.
3. Print one test sheet. Fold it down the middle. Check the cover is on the front and the pages read in order.
4. Then print the other ninety.

If your printer cannot do double-sided by itself, print page 1, put the sheet back in, and print page 2 on the other side. Which way up to reload is a property of your particular printer, so test with one sheet and a pencil mark before you commit.

One thing to watch: the panels are a fixed size

Each panel is a text frame of a fixed height, not a page that flows into the next one.

So if you type more than fits, the extra lines do not push onto a new page. They are simply hidden — there is no next page for them to go to. A notice can disappear without any warning on screen.

Check the bottom of each panel before you print. If something has vanished, you have two honest options: shorten the text, or drop the font size a point. Shortening is usually the better one, since a bulletin that is too long to fit is often too long to read.

Common problems, and what fixes them

Text has gone missing from the bottom of a panel. See the section above: the panels are fixed height and overflow is hidden, not carried over. Shorten the text, or reduce the font size by a point. Do not go below about 10pt, or you lose the older readers you were printing for.

Fonts look different on another computer. This template uses Georgia and Calibri, both of which ship with Word on Windows and Mac, so there should be nothing to install. If a bulletin still has to travel between computers — to a print shop, say — send a PDF rather than the Word file, and nothing can be substituted.

A thin white border appears, or content is cut off at the edge. Every office printer has a margin it physically cannot print into, usually 3–5 mm. Keep text and anything important inside the template’s margins. If you want colour running to the very edge of the paper, an office printer will not do it — that needs a print shop and a slightly oversized sheet.

The fold does not land in the middle. Almost always the paper guides in the tray rather than the file. Check them before you blame the template.

Everything shifted after someone edited it. Usually a dragged text box or a picture set to “in line with text.” Undo, then use Change Picture rather than delete-and-insert.

If you need more than a bulletin

The free template is one document. If your office also prints newsletters, orders of service, programs or flyers, the full pack has those built the same way, in Word and in Affinity, in both US Letter and A4.

And if you are reading this because Publisher is going away: Microsoft’s support page has the dates, and there is a plain walkthrough of what to do first.