Custom Game Instructions and Rule Books

stable stitching instruction printing
Custom Game Instructions and Rule Books
Custom Instructions
Game Instructions printing
Custom Instructions booklets
stable stitching instruction printing
Custom Game Instructions and Rule Books
Custom Instructions
Game Instructions printing
Custom Instructions booklets
100% satisfation Guaranteed

Most board games need instructions so that new players can understand the objectives of the game and how to play. At QinPrinting, as we’re an experienced offset printer as well as game manufacturer, we know everything there is to know about producing beautiful game instructions and rule books to suit all kinds of games and needs. Let’s have a look at the most popular options for printing custom game instructions.

If these are super-short and simple, we can print them on the box or a single sheet flyer or a folded brochure insert. So, we’ll look at these options first before discussing longer form booklets for more complex rule books.

At QinPrinting we offer a comprehensive array of paper stocks, finishes, coatings, and special features together with state-of-the-art offset printing technology. We make it easy for you to find a flyer or brochure solution for your custom game rules that’s within your budget.

Instant Quote

Quantity
We are an offset printer, rather than a digital or print-on-demand service, so we must impose a minimum order quantity (MOQ). We’ve set ours as low as possible, at 100 units. But with offset printing, the higher the quantity you order in a single print run, the lower the cost-per-unit.
Size
Choose preset dimensions from the dropdown menu or click “CUSTOM SIZE” to enter your own custom dimensions.
Please use the format, width x height;
size
so, 5.5" x 8.5" would mean 5.5" wide and 8.5" high.
The possible size range is 3.74" to 11.69" in width or height, allowing for portrait or landscape orientation.
Cover
The cover is composed of four pages. They are the front cover, the inside front cover, the inside back cover, and the back cover.
Cover Paper
If you need special paper not shown in the dropdown menu, please contact us.

1 gsm ≈ 0.68 lb Cover Paper

Lamination
We laminate only the outside of the cover.
Surface
We offer a comprehensive selection of special surface finishes which we can apply to most covers, with a few limitations. For example, spot UV can only be applied to matte laminated and soft-touch laminated covers.
These options are only suitable for gold or silver foil stamping up to a 5.9" x 1.18" area; and embossing, debossing, or spot UV up to a 7.87" x 1.96" area. If the special finish area you need is larger than this, please contact us to get a quote.
Besides gold and silver foil, we can foil stamp designs in a range of colors. If you need a special color foil stamp or have specific surface requests, please contact us. We’ll be happy to help.
Inner
Page Count
One sheet of paper is equal to two pages.
page-sheet
page-sheet
 
The total page count is a multiple of 4. When printing and binding your book, we fold sheets into “signatures”.
If your book is larger, say, 8.5" x 11" or A4 size, one signature will have 16 pages. So, the inner page amount should be divisible by 16. Making your page counts match signatures is the most economical solution.
Inner Paper
Please select your paper choice for your internal pages from the dropdown menu. If you have a special request not listed here, get in touch. We’ll do everything possible to satisfy your needs.
1 gsm ≈ 0.68 lb Text Paper
Binding
If your book has 48 pages or fewer, we recommend saddle stich as your binding option.
If you have more pages and choose fairly thin paper, such as 80 gsm /54 lb or 105 gsm / 71 lb text paper, we recommend perfect binding.
If your book has heavier interior paper or the page count exceeds 200 pages, sewn perfect binding will be your best choice.
Wire-O and spiral binding are other options and both of them open flat.
perfect binding
sewn perfect binding
wire-o binding
saddle stitch binding
spiral binding
EXW Price 
Calculating
*The price doesn’t include shipping costs.
Estimated weight:
Quantity
We are an offset printer, rather than a digital or print-on-demand service, so we must impose a minimum order quantity (MOQ). We’ve set ours as low as possible, at 100 units. But with offset printing, the higher the quantity you order in a single print run, the lower the cost-per-unit.
Size
Choose preset dimensions from the dropdown menu or click “CUSTOM SIZE” to enter your own custom dimensions.
Please use the format, width x height; so, 5.5" x 8.5" would mean 5.5" wide and 8.5" high.
flyer size
The possible size range is 3.54" to 33.07" in width, or 3.54" to 23.39" in height, allowing for portrait or landscape orientation.
Printing
Full color printing
Binding
If you would like a customized fold, please get in touch.
Paper
If you need special paper not shown in the dropdown menu, please contact us.
1 gsm ≈ 0.68 lb Text Paper
Lamination
We laminate only the outside of the flyer.
Surface
We offer a comprehensive selection of special surface finishes which we can apply to most flyers, with a few limitations. For example, spot UV can only be applied to matte laminated and soft-touch laminated flyers.
These options are only suitable for gold or silver foil stamping up to a 5.9" x 1.18" area; and embossing, debossing, or spot UV up to a 7.87" x 1.96" area. If the special finish area you need is larger than this, please contact us to get a quote.
Besides gold and silver foil, we can foil stamp designs in a range of colors. If you need a special color foil stamp or have specific surface requests, please contact us. We’ll be happy to help.
EXW Price 
Calculating
*The price doesn’t include shipping costs.
Estimated weight:

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Custom Game Instructions Size Options

At QinPrinting, we furnish a complete flyer and brochure printing service for your custom game instructions. We have digital machines which we use to prepare “hard proofs” to check for color and printing quality. But for the final print run we use our superior offset press. Offset printing gives you great looking prints with faithful color or black-and-white image reproduction and a noticeable price advantage over digital printing on longer print runs.

Common example sizes for flyer and brochure style game instructions are:

A3 Size 11.7 x 16.5 inches

A3

11.7 by 16.5 inches,
or 297 by 420 mm
A4 Size 8.3 x 11.7 inches

A4

8.3 by 11.7 inches,
or 210 by 297 mm
A5 Size 5.8 x 8.3 inches

A5

5.8 by 8.3 inches,
or 148 by 210 mm
US Letter Size 8.5 x 11 inches

US Letter

8.5 by 11 inches,
or 216 mm by 279 mm
Foolscap Size 13.5 x 17 inches

Foolscap

13.5 by 17 inches,
or 343 by 432 mm
DL size 3.9 x 8.3 inches

DL

3.9 by 8.3 inches,
or 99 mm by210 mm

For other sizes and shapes, contact us

Paper Options for Game Instructions

Gloss, matte, and uncoated paper

You have many options for paper stock to print your instructions at QinPrinting. Most sheets with photographic elements use gloss or matte cover paper because they have a high-quality finish which gives first-class image reproduction while uncoated paper could be fine if your instructions are mainly text, for example. Here’s a helpful list of typical papers used for game instuctions:

Gloss Paper

Matte Paper

Uncoated Paper

Choosing paper for your printed game instructions can feel confusing if it’s new to you, but our printing experts are always here to recommend the best paper selections for your design and your budget. And please ask us for paper samples. We’ll be happy to mail them to you.

Special Finishes, Lamination, and Foil Stamping

Like the rest of your custom board game components, you’ll want your instruction leaflet or brochure to make a fantastic impression. QinPrinting offers a complete range of finishing options to make your instructions uniquely attractive.

Among other options, the most popular choices include:

We can also incorporate a custom die-cut into your sheet to increase its visual impact. With die-cutting, we machine-cut a shape out of the material with a sort of industrial cookie cutter. For example, to create a ‘window’ to the illustration underneath the top fold of a brochure or to make your game’s name or your logo more visually striking. 

Game Instruction Booklets and Full-Scale Rule Books

Some games, however, are far more complex and many longer rule books we print for more advanced custom board games are either saddle-stitched with a glossy cover; perfect bound like a paperback book; or even hardcover bound, for example the more extensive rules with reference tables, maps, and so on demanded by roleplaying-style games. We also print rule books in spiral bindings—in which the loose pages are hole-punched and bound together with a plastic coil through the holes—but it’s much less common.

To saddle stitch your rule book, we fold the printed interior sheets and stack them inside the cover sheet before stapling them together down the curved edge. Saddle stitch is only possible with a page count divisible by four, up to a maximum of 64 pages. But to make sure the journal is neat and lies flat, we recommend a limit of 48 pages or fewer for this style of binding.

We use this binding style for rule books with higher pages counts. We collate the interior pages into a block, glued together, and then glued into a wrap-around cover made of heavier art paper or lightweight card stock. For rule books with from 48 to 200 pages, this is a great option.

This is a variation on perfect binding with the advantage that the pages can be laid flat when open, which is useful if you need to consult the rules often during play. We collate the interior pages into sets called “signatures”, which are then sewn together and fixed into a wrap-around cover made of heavier art paper or lightweight card stock.

In this binding, we organize the interior pages into signatures which are then printed, cut, and sewn, before we glue them into a hard casing covered by a printed sheet which forms the cover. This binding is the most durable and professional-looking and common for complex, role-playing style board games.

Brochure Style Game Instructions Folding Options

Your choice of paper and any special touches will depend on your game instruction brochure’s style, format, fold, and your personal taste. Given such a considerable array of choices, we’re happy to help you pick the best folding option for your needs. Let’s have a quick look at the possibilities.

Our most popular brochure folds are:

4-page standard fold

4-page Standard Fold

A single fold to create a game instruction with four pages—a front, two interior sides, and a back

Tri-fold

Tri-Fold

Two folds creating three equal panels which fold up as flaps like a traditional business letter

6-page accordion fold

6-Page Accordion Fold

Like the tri-fold but with the panels folded back in opposite directions to create the classic “accordion” style

8-page-roll-fold

8-Page Roll Fold

This has three folds creating eight printable panels which fold over each other as if the paper were being “rolled” up.

8-page gatefolding

8-Page Gatefold

Two folds at the quarter lines create gate-like panels that close over the central interior panel

8-page parallel fold

8-Page Parallel Fold

Three folds making eight pages, using the central fold to allow the two-panel sets either side to tuck one inside the other

8-page french fold

French Fold

One horizontal fold across the length of the sheet, folded, and then another vertical fold to create a double layer with a hidden interior

16-page broadsheet

16-Page Broadsheet Fold

The same principle as the French fold but with three vertical folds creating a multi-page concertina effect

An excellent way to make your game instructions stand out from the crowd is to use a process called die-cutting to make custom shapes. A die cutter is like an industrial scale cookie cutter but made to cut paper not cookies! We can prepare a mold to cut out a section of the paper, create a “silhouette” design, or other effects. As we already use the die-cutter in creating instructions, we can get creative with it at only a marginal extra cost. Talk to us about the possibilities if you’re interested in this option.

We recommend that you laminate your custom board game instructions if they have several folds and thicker paper as this will make sure they don’t tear and that the surface still looks good. You can laminate on one or both sides.

Design and Artwork Tips for Your Custom Game Instructions

Whether you’re preparing your own artwork in-house or commissioning a professional designer to do it for you, it’s important to understand how to prepare the artwork and text for printing. You’ll need to allow for bleed zones, safety areas, trim lines, and borders, for example, and make sure that the resolution and the color space are correct. 

PDF

Export your files as vectors in PDF format for the best results. Our recommended software options for game instructions design are Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign. These will also allow you to convert your color space from RGB to CMYK which you will need to do for offset printing.

300dpi

If you can’t deliver vectors — say, if you’re exporting bitmaps from Photoshop — then make sure the resolution is at least 300 DPI. With vectors, you needn’t worry about resolution, but all other images must have a high definition to tolerate resizing without becoming fuzzy and “pixilated”.

3 mm bleed zone

You’ll need to add a “bleed zone” of 3 mm around all your panels. A bleed is an extended zone at the periphery of your images, which falls outside the area that your finished panel will cover. Once we’ve printed your sheets, we’ll cut them to the exact size needed for your chosen format. This “bit extra” gets cut off and makes sure that the finished image fills the sheet with none of it being lost. You should mark bleed zones as red lines.

trim line 5mm

Inside your bleed zone, don’t forget to mark the “trim lines”. These should be green and will define the final dimensions of the finished panel. Make sure that any necessary elements of your images or text stop at least 5 mm short of the trim line.

A competent graphic designer should understand the technical details and be able to set this up for you. But we’ll always manually check your files before going to press. While the responsibility for sending “print ready” files is yours, please don’t worry! We’ll be happy to “hold your hand” through the process, explain what’s needed, and liaise with your designer to make sure everything goes smoothly and you end up with a perfect print every time.

To learn more about preparing your artwork and layouts for printing, please check out our Prepress Artwork information page. And please ask us for a design template. We’ll be happy to send you one. And if design isn’t your thing, we’ll be happy to create a design for you based on the images, logo, text etc. that you provide for an extra fee. Just ask!

Talk to Us!

For the best pricing, highest quality, and quickest turnaround-time on any type or style of custom game instructions, printing with us is always a good business decision. We guarantee the best pricing, the most professional service, and the highest quality product you can imagine. So, let’s talk.

Get in touch