How many funeral programs to print

Start from the number of guests

Begin with a rough count of who is likely to come. It helps to think in circles: the family first, then close friends, then colleagues past and present, the congregation if the service is at their church, and the neighbors. Add any group they belonged to, such as a club, a choir or a veterans' association, since its members may come together.

Lists you already have can help: an address book, the contacts in their phone, a holiday card list or a church directory. An obituary in the newspaper or a notice shared online can also bring people you have not seen in years, so allow for a few you would not have thought to count.

You cannot know the number exactly, and you do not need to. The funeral director has seen many services like this one and can help you estimate from what you know about the person and the family. Ask at the arrangement meeting, or by phone.

The room sets the ceiling on guests. A chapel that seats sixty will not hold two hundred people, whatever the guest list says, so ask the church or the funeral home how many people it holds, including anyone standing. If that is fewer than you expected, add the quarter to that number instead.

Add about a quarter

Once you have a number, add about a quarter to it. The extra copies are not wasted. They go:

• into keepsake boxes, family albums and Bibles
• in the mail to relatives and friends who could not come
• to people who take a second copy for someone at home
• to guests you did not expect, because an estimate is only an estimate

A program is one of the few things from the day that people keep. Families rarely regret printing a few more.

Add more than a quarter if the family is large and spread out, since many relatives will want copies to send on, or if you mean to mail a program to everyone who could not come. A small private service with a known guest list needs only a few spares.

A quick table

Each figure is the number of guests plus a quarter, rounded up to the nearest five. For a number in between, do the same: add a quarter, then round up.

Who else needs one

Some people need a program before the service starts, and some are easy to overlook:

• the officiant, the musicians and the readers, who follow the order of service as it happens
• the ushers, who hand the programs out, and the pallbearers
• the family: ten to twenty copies, set aside before the doors open in an envelope with a name on it, so that they are not handed out with the rest
• relatives who cannot travel, who will be glad of a copy by mail
• the funeral home, which may keep one for its own file
• the guest book table, where a few spare copies help anyone who arrives late

The extra quarter in the table is meant to cover these copies. At a small service it may not stretch that far: 25 guests leaves ten spare, so if the family wants twenty, print ten more.

If you can, send the officiant and the musicians the program a day or two early, as a file or a single printed copy. They can check the order against their own notes while a mistake can still be put right.

At home or at a print shop

A home printer suits small numbers. Before printing them all, print one double-sided copy, fold it, and check that the pages line up and face the right way. Then allow more time than seems necessary, since double-sided printing is slow and every copy has to be folded by hand.

Most home printers take paper a little heavier than ordinary copy paper, but many struggle with thick card stock, so try a single sheet first. Let the pages dry before you stack and fold them, especially if they carry photographs. Folding goes faster with two or three people around a table, and it gives relatives who want to help something useful to do.

A print shop is quicker for larger numbers. It can print on heavier paper, which feels more substantial in the hand and shows less through from the other side, and many shops will fold the programs for you. If you choose card stock, ask the shop to score the fold so that it creases cleanly.

The usual program is a bifold: a letter-size sheet, 8.5 by 11 inches, folded once to 5.5 by 8.5 inches. Bring the program as a PDF, and tell the shop the number of copies, the paper and whether to fold them. Many shops can print the same day, but call ahead with the number and the time you need them by.

Ask the shop for one finished copy to check before it prints the rest, and read it through once more. Keep the file on your phone as well, so that a few more copies can be printed quickly if you need them.

If you make the program here, the purchase includes both files: a print-shop PDF, with bleed and trim marks, and a home-printer PDF. There is more about the format on the funeral program template page.

When unsure, print more

If you are torn between two numbers, choose the larger. Running out at the door is harder on everyone than a box of spare copies: guests go without, and someone in the family spends the start of the service worrying about it.

Leftovers are kept. They go into drawers and albums, and into the mail in the weeks after, to people who ask for one. If you are still putting the program together, what to put in a funeral program goes through it panel by panel.