Book terms for the non bibliofile

Books have been around for as long as there has been written language, some 5000+ years. That’s a long time, and something that has been around that long develops it’s own special language or shorthand to describe how they are made. Since this is book (and booklet) month at Copy Express, I thought it would be useful to explain some of the terms and technical limitations around books. So come with me as I talk about tongues, saddle stitching, leafs and all the other little things that can confuse you when you start talking books with a printer.

Sheets, Sides, Leaves, and Pages

The basic unit of the book is a page, but what is a page? Depending on who, or what, you talk to a page can be different things. Computers see pages as one block of information which has nothing to do on where it is placed on a physical sheet of pages. I use the term logical pages in this context as most people give page counts from this computer ‘page’ number. Printers see pages as a sheet of paper that you turn which can have printing on one or both sides of it. To avoid confusion for people I use the term Leaves. Now depending on how the book is going to be made up, a sheet of paper may be bound flat or folded then bound. If it is bound flat then it is 1 leaf with two logical pages on it, when folded it becomes 2 leaves with up to four logical pages printed on it. Finally a sheet of paper has only two sided that can be printed on before it is folded and/or bound. This is what printers charge on, sides not logical pages or sheets. This becomes important when you start mixing black only and colour logical pages together on the same sheet because if one side of a page has one logical page of colour then the whole sheet could be charged as colour even if the rest of the printing is black only. At Copy Express we charge per sided for printing and can advise you how to get the best out of your colour printing cost. In fact see the Book Design for Beginners  as a starting point.

Tongue & Creep

Now if you fold a stack of paper in half you will notice that the inner sheets stick out further than the outer ones. Have a look at the image to see what I mean. This is called Creep and results in a Tongue at the outside edge which is caused by the paper’s own ‘thickness’ pushing the inner pages forward. To make the book look good we have to trim off the excess paper tongue so that the outside edge is even. The problem is that because the outer margins are relative to the sheet edge, when we trim that edge we end up with progressively smaller outer margins as we approach the centre of the book.  This is called “creep.”  Now for smaller centre-bound books, 20 logical pages or less, we often don’t worry about trimming off the tongue and therefore the creep isn’t really noticed.  For books where trimming the tongue is necessary we have special settings in our printing systems that adjust for the creep issue by moving the position of the printing on the sheet so that the outer margin always remains the same size after trimming no matter where the sheet sits in the book.

Bindings

There are several different ways a book can be bound each with their advantages and limitations. When I talk about leave numbers this is based on printing 80gsm uncoated (photocopy) paper.  Thicker/heavier papers will reduce this maximum. All page counts also include the pages that would be counted as the cover of the book even if it’s printed in a different material like card.

Glue Padding

(not illustrated) For some situations where you only need the pages to be held together for a short period of time and then easily separated, Glue Padding offers a simple solution. While use for things like notepads and lined refills, this format is great for short term books that need to be broken up at the end of it’s use. There is no limit to how many logical pages can be bound this way, but I’ve found that over 200 leaves can become unwieldy.

Saddle Staple

The simplest of the binding methods where a stack of paper is stapled in the middle then folded in half. It has the advantage of being fast and cheap to do while giving a clean professional look. The main limitation is that we can’t do a book larger than 20 sheets (80 logical pages) and we get the creep issue I talked about the previous section. We use this format a lot for brochures, newsletters, and low cost textbooks.

Edge Stapled

Instead of the pages being stapled in the center then folded, the paper is stacked then stapled along one edge. This allows for up to 100 leaves to be stapled together without needing to worry about the creep and still keeping the binding cost to a lower price point. The down side is that you have to allow for a thicker margin for the bind side of pages for the space needed for the binding, and it also leaves the spine edges of the leaves and the staples exposed. We often use fabric tape wrapped along the spine and bind edge of the covers to solve this problem. This format gets used for long life textbooks and reference/product books.

Wrapped Cover Edge Stapled

Take the Edge Stapled format then wrap a creased cardboard cover around the book instead of the fabric tape. While this does add to the binding cost and we can’t do this for all edge bound books, it gives you the paperback look and a spine that you can print information on.

Wire Comb

Comb Binding takes sheets of paper, punches holes along one edge then clamps a wire comb through it to hold pages together. This style of book allows for up to 240 leaves to be assembled into one book and even mix different types of papers and physical page sizes together. This job requires more physical labour to put the book together so there is a higher binding cost per unit but makes for a very flexible book format that can have the pages folded back onto themselves if you need to. We have used this format for just about everything.

Wrapped Cover Wire Comb

Wrapped Cover Wire Comb takes the standard wire comb and inserts a specially formatted creased card cover that then unfolds to wrap around most of the comb hiding it and giving you a printable spine. Because of limitation with material sizes we are currently limited in how large a comb we can wrap based on the book size, but it still makes a useful format for a premium look version of the book.

Plastic Comb

Plastic Comb uses the same production and flexibility as wire comb and increases the maximum number of leaves to 480. This the one format where we can’t do a wrap around cover for but with the larger combs we can print stickers that can allow you to have details on the spine.  The major advantage of plastic over wire comb is that plastic comb can be opened and closed again to allow for pages to be added, removed or replaced if necessary.

Swatches

Swatch books has a hole drilled in one corner of the stack of sheets and then a book ring or rivet put through it to bind it together. While the pages are loose to a degree, it’s a great way to bind thicker material together, or allow you to directly compare two or more non-adjacent pages together. We’ve used them for reference sheets and product guides.

Ring or Lever Arch Binders

Finally we just punch holes into stacks of paper ready to be put in to any Ringbinder or Lever Arch Folder. We can provide you with the binders and print inserts for the covers and spines. Using ring and lever arch give you the advantage that you can easily swap out sections as your contents get updated, great for reference and product guides as you then only have to print send out the changed sections to clients instead of replacing the whole book.

Of course if you need a different format like Perfect Bind (paperback) or even Hardcover style books we can outsource this work to specialled companies. We can help you format the document for the requirements of the specialists and even take care of the printing part so we can get you the best value per book.

So this has been my quick introduction to the terms of books and binding for the non-bibliophile. If it’s sparked your interest in to get a book or books printed then give Copy Express a call or email right away and we will step you through the process of getting it done. In parting I answer the question ‘what is a bibliophile?’ That’s someone who really loves books.