In drawing up a printing plan the Programme Office had to decide whether to have separate programmes for each sport or a general programme to be issued daily containing the programmes for all the events on the day in question. The former method had been adopted in London in 1948, the latter in Berlin in 1936. For reasons of technical printing facilities the choice fell on separate programmes. Hence, 54 different programmes were printed as follows:

Printing work on the programmes was divided between six Helsinki presses. Owing to the large printings needed, the programmes for the track and field events, the Opening Ceremony, the Closing Ceremony and the football matches The covers, ready in advance, were printed by two firms.

Only one ink was used. The original idea was to have a differently coloured programme each day. To simplify matters, however, it was decided to limit the colours used in the day programmes to eight, the colour series for the period July 19th-26th being repeated over the period July 27th-Aug. 3rd. Competition and tournament programmes had their own colours, so that the total number of colours used in programme printing was 29.

The wording of both covers and programmes was in four languages (Finnish, Swedish, French, English).
Printed on three sides of the covers were:
a) inside front, the abbreviations used for names of countries
b) inside back, time-table of the Games
c) back, a traffic map of Helsinki with all arenas marked.
The wording of both covers and programmes was in four languages (Finnish, Swedish, French, English).

From the beginning of May onward the head of the Programme Office was assisted by two programme editors. The use of four languages necessitated much translation work. Although the skeleton drafts for the programmes were ready by the end of May, the final phase was one of frantic haste. For this there were many reasons. The lists of definitive entries could not be made ready as speedily as would have been desirable. The growth of entries for some sports exceeded the boldest estimates, with the result that the skeleton frames for some programmes had to be reset. The editing of the day programmes was hampered by delay on the part of competition offices in sending in the results of draws and the order of heats and lanes.

The programmes were not without errors, because certain international federations arbitrarily altered divisions into heats, the order of draws, etc., after the programmes were already out. Of this a few examples.

The I.A.A.F. decided on Friday, July 25th, that the semi-finals for the women's 200 metres were to take place on that day and not, as in the officially approved programme, on July 26th. In the men's 4 X 100 metres relay, the draw for the heats and the number of heats decided on the previous evening were altered while the event was in progress. The order of bouts fixed by the Association Internationale de Boxe for one day was in two respects against the rules and after a protest had been lodged had to be entirely revised, putting the programme into error in regard to the classes concerned. The Union Cycliste Internationale made sweeping changes in the order of events, the system of elimination and the number of heats on the first competition day, with the result that the printed programme was in hardly any accord with the facts. The Federation Internationale de Natation Amateur at the last moment altered the elimination system for water polo, compelling extensive and costly alterations to the programme. The day programme for rowing on July 21st was not brought out in time because it had to be reset at midnight after the Federation Internationale des Societes d'Aviron had altered the order of preliminary heats late that night. All this serves to show the thankless nature of the work the programme editors had to do, particularly in preparing the day programmes.

(Source document:   Official Report 1952, page 40)