Scribd
Upload
115 views1 page

Book Printing and Binding Processes

Books are typically printed on web presses, which use a continuous roll of paper, rather than sheet-fed presses, allowing for higher volume printing. The pages of a book are printed two at a time, not as a complete book. Additional pages are printed to account for test prints and pages spoiled during setup of the printing press. After folding and gathering signatures, the bound book moves to the bindery. Hardback books require more binding steps than paperbacks. Common binding methods include sewing, where needles are used to attach signatures, and notch binding, where gashes are cut into the spine fold.

Uploaded by

rjohn 7
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
115 views1 page

Book Printing and Binding Processes

Books are typically printed on web presses, which use a continuous roll of paper, rather than sheet-fed presses, allowing for higher volume printing. The pages of a book are printed two at a time, not as a complete book. Additional pages are printed to account for test prints and pages spoiled during setup of the printing press. After folding and gathering signatures, the bound book moves to the bindery. Hardback books require more binding steps than paperbacks. Common binding methods include sewing, where needles are used to attach signatures, and notch binding, where gashes are cut into the spine fold.

Uploaded by

rjohn 7
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Printing

Book covers

Some books, particularly those with shorter runs (i.e. fewer copies) will be printed on sheet-fed offset
presses, but most books are now printed on web presses, which are fed by a continuous roll of
paper, and can consequently print more copies in a shorter time. As the production line circulates, a
complete "book" is collected together in one stack, next to another, and another web press carries
out the folding itself, delivering bundles of signatures (sections) ready to go into the gathering line.
Note that the pages of a book are printed two at a time, not as one complete book. Excess numbers
are printed to make up for any spoilage due to make-readies or test pages to assure final print
quality.
A make-ready is the preparatory work carried out by the pressmen to get the printing press up to the
required quality of impression. Included in make-ready is the time taken to mount the plate onto the
machine, clean up any mess from the previous job, and get the press up to speed. As soon as the
pressman decides that the printing is correct, all the make-ready sheets will be discarded, and the
press will start making books. Similar make readies take place in the folding and binding areas, each
involving spoilage of paper.
Binding
After the signatures are folded and gathered, they move into the bindery. In the middle of last
century there were still many trade binders – stand-alone binding companies which did no printing,
specializing in binding alone. At that time, because of the dominance of letterpress printing,
typesetting and printing took place in one location, and binding in a different factory. When type was
all metal, a typical book's worth of type would be bulky, fragile and heavy. The less it was moved in
this condition the better: so printing would be carried out in the same location as the typesetting.
Printed sheets on the other hand could easily be moved. Now, because of
increasing computerization of preparing a book for the printer, the typesetting part of the job has
flowed upstream, where it is done either by separately contracting companies working for the
publisher, by the publishers themselves, or even by the authors. Mergers in the book manufacturing
industry mean that it is now unusual to find a bindery which is not also involved in book printing (and
vice versa).
If the book is a hardback its path through the bindery will involve more points of activity than if it is
a paperback. Unsewn binding, is now increasingly common. The signatures of a book can also be
held together by "Smyth sewing" using needles, "McCain sewing", using drilled holes often used in
schoolbook binding, or "notch binding", where gashes about an inch long are made at intervals
through the fold in the spine of each signature. The rest of the binding process is similar in all
instances. Sewn and notch bound books can be bound as either hardbacks or paperbacks.

You might also like