Quick answer: open Free Pub Editor, choose File → New → Flyer, and type over the sample text. Add a tear-off strip from the Insert tab if you want one, pick a colour scheme, then print at home or Export PDF for a print shop. It's free, with no sign-up or watermark.
What makes a good flyer?
People glance at a flyer for a few seconds as they walk past. Before you open any software, write down:
- What it is, in three or four words: "Garage Sale", "Lost Cat", "Piano Lessons".
- When and where, if it's an event.
- One way to get in touch: a phone number, email or web address.
- Two or three details that make someone act: what's on sale, the reward, the price.
Anything beyond that probably belongs somewhere else.
Step 1: Start from the Flyer template
In Free Pub Editor, choose File → New and pick Flyer. You get an A4 garage-sale flyer with a big headline, date and address, a list of items, a photo frame and a footer strip. Click any text to change it, and double-click the photo frame to add your own picture.
Need a different size? Page Design → Size offers A5, A3, Letter, DL and more, and Orientation switches to landscape.
Step 2: Add a tear-off strip
For lessons, lost pets or a room to rent, a row of tear-off tabs lets people take your number with them.
- Choose Insert → Tear-off strip. A row of eight sideways tabs appears at the bottom of the page, with dashed cut lines.
- The tabs contain a sample name and phone number. Open Home → Replace, type the sample name, your own name, and click Replace all. Do the same for the number, and every tab is updated at once.
- Make sure the rest of your flyer stops above the dashed line.
There's more on this in our tear-off flyer template guide.
Step 3: Colours, fonts and a border
- Page Design → Colours applies a colour scheme. High contrast reads best from a distance: dark text on a pale background, or the other way round.
- Page Design → Fonts sets a heading and body font together.
- Page Design → Borders adds a page border: thin, thick, rounded, dashed, dotted or double line.
- Insert → Shapes and WordArt are there for a starburst or a bold headline. Use them sparingly.
Step 4: Check it
Run Review → Design Checker. It flags things like text that doesn't fit its box, empty picture frames, text outside the margins and pictures that may print blurry. Then read the phone number out loud, digit by digit. A wrong number makes the whole flyer useless.
Should I print at home or at a print shop?
| Home or office printer | Print shop | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | A few dozen copies, quick turnaround | Hundreds of copies, thick paper, A3 posters |
| Colour to the very edge | Often not: many printers leave a narrow white margin | Yes, if the file has bleed (see below) |
| What to send | File → Print from the editor | A PDF from Export PDF |
| Cost | Your ink and paper | Ask for a quote |
Printing at home? Small flyers can go several to a sheet. Make a postcard-sized flyer (Page Design → Size → Postcard, 148 × 105 mm), then choose File → Print → Copies per sheet to fit two on each A4 page, with crop marks to cut along. The option only appears when at least two copies fit, so it isn't offered for A5 on A4.
What is bleed, and do I need it?
Printers can't cut paper perfectly. If your background colour runs right to the edge, the shop prints on bigger paper and trims it down. The extra colour beyond the trim line is called bleed, usually about 3 mm.
In Free Pub Editor, View → Bleed line shows a 3 mm guide outside the page, so you can stretch background shapes past the edge (the Flyer template already does this). Be aware that the PDF comes out at the exact page size, without the extra bleed area. So:
- Simplest: keep a white margin around your design. No bleed needed.
- Edge-to-edge colour: ask the shop how they want the file. Some can work from an exact-size PDF; others will ask for bleed, which Canva can add (below).
Keep important text at least 5 mm inside the edge either way, so trimming never cuts into it.
Free Pub Editor or Canva?
Canva is the obvious alternative, and it's good. Its free plan costs nothing and offers "1.6M+ templates" (Canva pricing). It can also download a "PDF Print" with "Crop marks and bleed", adding 3.175 mm on each side (Canva Help).
| Free Pub Editor | Canva (free plan) | |
|---|---|---|
| Account needed | No | Yes |
| Templates | A few starters (flyer, poster, menu, raffle tickets…) | Huge library |
| Opens old Publisher .pub flyers | Yes, editable | No |
| Bleed in exported PDF | No (exact page size) | Yes, with PDF Print |
| Tear-off strip | Built in | Make your own from shapes and text |
| Where your file is kept | On your device | In your Canva account |
| Working with others | One person at a time | Shared editing |
If you have an old Publisher flyer to reuse, want no account, or need tear-off tabs, Free Pub Editor is quicker. For lots of design choices, or a full-bleed print run, Canva is a strong pick. You can use both: see moving a .pub design into Canva.
Quick design tips
- One big thing. The headline should be readable from across a room.
- Fewer words. If it doesn't help someone decide to come or call, cut it.
- Use a real photo where you can: the actual cat, the actual couch.
- Print one test copy before printing fifty.