How to Make a Trifold Brochure in Google Docs

Time needed: 1 hour

Follow each step to create a trifold brochure in Google Docs. You will need your creativity and imagination to make it more beautiful. Don’t hesitate to experiment. Here are the steps:

1. Adjust the Page Setup

   First, I assume that you already know How to create a new blank document in google docs. After creating a new blank document, don’t forget to name it. In this example, I name my document exactly the same as the purpose I am writing the tutorial, that is “How to make a trifold Brochure in Google Docs”.
   
   After that, we need to change the setup of the page. We want to make it landscape. By default, the page orientation in google docs is portrait, so we need to change it. To access the page setup settings: click on the file menu, and then go to Page Setup. See the image to get clear instruction.

2. Edit the parameters

   Now, edit the parameters. For starter, just follow my sample. In this sample, please make sure that you open the “pages” tab, then, make sure that the “apply to” is set to “whole document”, then the Orientation should be “landscape”, the paper size is “letter”, the page colour is “white”, the margins (important): top, bottom, left, right are all 0.3 inches. After that, click ok.
   
   We chose the landscape page orientation because we are making trifold brochure because mostly, trifold brochures are in landscape format. Thus, it will make it easy for the designer to layout it in three columns.
   

3. Fill in the text content

   Next is that we need to put text content into the brochure. This will enable us to view the whole design. Prepare any text you want. You can just write a sentence, and than multiply it by copying and pasting. You can arrange it into several small paragraphs.

4. Create Three Columns to make Trifold Brochure

   Create three columns: We are going to create three columns for the page. To do so, click on the “Format” tab, and then go to “columns”, and than choose the three columns icon.

5. Adjusting the content paragraph, sub heading, and more

   Once the page is divided into three columns, you can adjust the text content to make it neat and beautiful. In my sample, I also add heading, the writer, and the content. As you can see, I also chunks the paragraph into smaller ones, for aesthetic purpose. In addition, small paragraphs make it easy for the user to read. Here is how it looks: nice, right?

6. Adding Image to the Brochure in Google Docs

   Next, we will add another common element found in a brochure, picture. Yes, we will add an image into the brochure. You can add an image by uploading it from your computer, or google drive, or google photos, or by inserting url of an image you found online, or by taking new using camera (using laptop or smartphone depending on the device you use to open this page).
   
   In this example, I choose “Search the Web”. This is because I do not have enough collection of photos suitable for this sample. So here is how to add image from the web:

7. Adding Image from internet or various sources

   searching, selecting, and inserting image from internet to the page. Once you click on the “Search the web”, a window in the right panel will show you a search bar. In this example, I typed “teacher”, and I got the image as shown in the illustration below. Once you have the choice in mind, select the image, and click insert button. In this example, I choose the first one. You can see that there is a check mark on the corner of the image I selected.
   

8. Position the image anywhere wanted

   position the image: Next is to put the image wherever you like in the page. You can put it in the first column, in the second column, or in the last column. You can put it between two paragraphs. In the illustration below, I mark some sample places you can put the image into. In this example, I put the image in the middle column. If you want to create your own image of illustration, you can try digital art websites.
   

9. Adding Border as Decoration

   adding border as decoration: To make the Google Docs trifold brochure more beautiful, we can add some decoration. One of kinds of decoration is border. I like using border for decorating my brochure. Border, with specific colour can provide beautiful accent, yet elegant to bring the brochure Come to life.
   To add border as decoration, Go to the tab “insert”, then go to “Drawing”, and go to “New”. See the following illustration.
   

10. Create Border using Shape in Google Drawing

    create border using Shape: In this example, I want to use shape to create the border for my brochure design. Once you click on the “new” menu, as instructed before, there will appear a window of Google Drawing. That’s right, Google Drawing. Why not in the google docs? Because Google Docs does not support creating shapes directly in the editor. It needs the help of another app, in this case “Google Drawing”. Ok. So now you are in google drawing, please locate the insert shape icon, and than go to “Shapes”, and than click the “rectangle” one.

11. Draw the border using shape and set outline to transparent

    draw border: After that, you can draw a shape like the one I show in the picture below. After clicking and dragging to create the shape, please change the border line to transparent. You can actually let it be with the border, but in my experience of designing a brochure and other types of documents, it is much more beautiful to set it transparent or no line. To do so, see the image and follow the steps. Follow what I highlight in the image.

12. Adding color to the shape

    adding color: After setting the border colour to transparent, that is to make it borderless, now please add the colour to the shape itself. In this example, I chose blue. You may want to choose your own colour. I just picked what was available in the default setting.
    
    If you want more colour, you can select plus button, then there will appear settings for choosing different colour from various ranges of different colours.
    
    You can also choose gradient if you want. As you can see in the image below, there is a gradient tab next to the Solid colour tab. Click on the gradient tab, and you can see some colour options that you may be interested in.

13. Change the positioning of the shape

    change shape position: The shape that you just created will appear somewhere in the page, depending on the cursor position. The next important setting is to change the positioning of the shape. This is super important. Click on the shape to activate it. You will see the setting appearing. Change the position to be “IN FRONT of TEXT” and “FIX POSITION ON PAGE”. This will make the shape to appear on the upper layer of the text, and is movable to anywhere in the page without breaking the paragraphs layout.

14. Put the shape on top of page

    put on top of page: I decided to put the shape on top most of the page. This is to create an illusion that it functions as a border. I repeat this process by copying and pasting the shape, and then move each to the next columns, and change the colour to create a trifold brochure section.

15. Adding background

    adding background: Furthermore, to put more detail separation of the three columns, I want to make each column looks different by giving each different background colour. To achieve this, I copy and paste the border shape I created before as the top border. Then, I change the colour to a brighter one. For the first column, because the top border is blue, the background colour of the first column is also set to blue, but brighter. Next, Expand the shape to cover the whole column vertically. See the example below.
    NOTE: At first, the shape will cover the entire first column, and thus the text is covered. you have to change the setting of the position to be “BELOW THE TEXT”. This way will make the text to be in front of the shape. The text will be readable again, and the shape will act as the background. Similarly, you can repeat this process to the next column.

16. Add more elements until final result

    add more elements until final result