A short, practical guide for families arranging a service, written so that nobody has to work out the printing part while grieving.
The job of sorting out the programmes has probably fallen to the person in the family who is coping. It has to be done in a few days, alongside everything else, and nobody has explained what is involved.
This is written to make that part simple. It is short on purpose.
What a printer needs from you
Four things, and none of them require design knowledge:
- The photograph. The original file if you can find it, not a copy forwarded through a messaging app, which is compressed and prints poorly. A phone photograph of a printed picture, taken flat in daylight, is better than a heavily forwarded digital file.
- The order of service, as a plain list. It does not need to be laid out or formatted; that is done for you.
- The tributes and the life story, as text.
- The number of copies. More on this below.
Everything else (layout, fonts, spacing, cover) is handled at this end. Families frequently try to design the programme themselves at two in the morning, and there is no need.
How many to print
This is the question families most often get wrong, and the direction of the error is consistent: too few.
Count the people you expect and add half again. Attendance at Kenyan funerals is reliably higher than expected, people take a copy home for relatives who could not travel, and the family itself will want copies afterwards, often years afterwards. A programme is one of the few objects that survives from the day.
Running out during the service is distressing in a way that leftover copies are not. Print generously.
The thing worth checking twice: names and dates. Everyone reads past them, because everyone already knows what they should say. Have somebody who was not involved in writing it read the proof aloud. That catches what re-reading it yourself cannot.
What can be decided later, and what cannot
The photograph and the order of service must be settled before printing. The life story and tributes are what tend to arrive late, and that is normal: they can be finalised last, as long as somebody has said roughly how many pages they will fill.
Page count is the one structural decision. A single folded sheet, four sides, is enough for a straightforward service. Eight or twelve pages allows for tributes, a longer life story and more photographs. Anything longer becomes a small booklet and needs stitching instead of folding, which takes a little more time.
The usual single folded sheet is an A4 sheet, 210 x 297 mm, folded once to A5, 148 x 210 mm. Each A size is exactly half the one above it and keeps the same proportions, so the folded programme has the same shape as the full sheet.
The other printed things
Families usually need more than the programmes, and it is easier to think of them together:
- Printed notices announcing the arrangements, for distribution and for noticeboards.
- A large photograph for the front of the venue. Many families do not realise this can be produced quickly, and it is often the thing people remember.
- A condolence book (KSh 2,500) for people to sign. This is the item most often thought of on the morning, when it is too late, and the one families are most grateful to have afterwards.
- Thank-you cards for afterwards. Nobody wants to think about these now, but ordering them with everything else means they exist when they are needed, instead of becoming another task in a month that is already hard.
Order them at the same time as the programmes. It is one conversation instead of four, at a point when one conversation is worth a great deal.
If several people are helping
Work reaching a printer from four relatives in four messages is where mistakes enter. Somebody has to be the one who sends things, and everyone else sends to them. It does not matter who; it matters that it is one person.
The same applies to approving the proof. A proof circulated to the whole family comes back with contradictory changes and a day lost. One person reads it carefully, collects any corrections, and replies once.
Timing
Send what you have as early as you can, even if it is incomplete. A printer holding a photograph and an order of service can begin the layout while the tributes are still being written, which removes most of the pressure from the last day.
If the service is outside Nairobi, say so at the beginning, not at the end. Delivery is arranged as part of the job, and knowing the destination changes when things need to be finished.
If you are also arranging something more permanent, memorial tiles and headstone engraving is a separate decision that does not need to be made this week, and probably should not be.
Sources: ISO 216 paper sizes (Wikipedia; the standard itself is not free to read) (read 14 Oct 2026).
Common questions
How quickly can programmes be printed?
Faster than most families expect, and the timeline is set by how quickly the content and the proof approval come back, not by production. Send the photograph and the order of service first, even if the tributes are not finished; layout can begin on partial content, and that is usually where a day is saved.
What if the photograph is old or damaged?
Send it anyway. Old prints can often be scanned and improved, and a photograph that looks poor on a phone screen is frequently fine once handled properly. If it genuinely cannot be used at the size needed, you will be told before anything is printed, so there is time to look for another.
How many copies should we order?
Your expected attendance plus about 50%. Attendance is consistently higher than families estimate, people take copies for relatives who could not come, and the family will want copies to keep. Extra copies cost little compared with the alternative of running out partway through the service.
Can you deliver to a service outside Nairobi?
Yes, anywhere in Kenya. Say where the service is when you first make contact, because it changes when things need to be finished, not whether they can be. For delivery outside Nairobi, the cost is on the quote before anything is agreed.
