Perfect Binding Setup Info
When setting up artwork for perfect binding, please ensure you have read thoroughly the following guidelines. Ideally you should read these notes before you start designing, as once you get close to deadline, one can find that the adjustments required for correct printing results can be quite time-consuming if your design is complex or inflexible. Following our guidelines for perfect binding setup will ensure your job faces no delays on print date.
Concepts – Spine Wrap
As you can see from the above, a perfect-bound document has the spine wrapped around the content. You’ll see the gathered sections of the inner, the thick line of glue between the inner and the spine, and then the spine which wraps completely around the inner, folding open from a crease or “hinge”, which is inwards from the spine edge.
If we expand the above in terms of what your unfolded papers will look like, we see the following:
This example shows an A6 document (trim size 105 x 148mm).
As you will see, the cover has the cross-hatched section, or gutter, plus the spine width, crossing over the spine.
The gutter at the front and back edges, the crosshatched area, is typically 10mm. The minimum spine width is generally approx 3.5mm So when you supply your cover, you need to ensure that the layout of the front and back pages compensate for this.
So in this example, you would design your front & back pages as 1 large image, with a 3.6mm spine. If your image wraps around your spine, its best to send us layered artwork as we may need to adjust the spine by a few mm.
The inner pages are simply supplied as single pages; the only thing to note in this case is that you will lose up to 10mm of the content inside the spine gutter. So you need to work with a 10mm margin on your inside edge.
If you would like us to provide you with templates built for your application before you start, please indicate. There is a charge of £30 + VAT for makeup of the template which is credited from your final order balance.
For a list of our standard templates, click here.