Bookbinding

Bookbinding :: RE: Bending Spine problem

Author: rob71
Subject: Bending spine problem
Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 12:07 am (GMT -5)

I can understand what you have achieved after perusing that website on bookbinding. To bind a proper book you need to find a hands on course to achieve your goal.

Bookbinding :: Confusion about imposition/signature

Author: jbrukardt
Subject: Confusion about imposition/signature
Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 3:00 am (GMT -5)

Good morning folks,

Im afraid i have yet another newbie question, i realize ive been flooding the forum with them a bit these days, but upon talking to some printers something has come up.

I believe i may have misunderstood some advice in the past as to page size and imposition. I had a problem with my document being too large to bind (too many pages) so i attempted to cut down the number of pages by increasing the page size. One of the page sizes recommended by a forum member was 11x17. I understood this to mean 11 inches wide, by 17 inches tall, for each page. However I am not entirely sure i was correct in that assumption now. My document writing software does support this page size, it calls it "tabloid" but im not sure this is good for printers, especially in a larger signature such as 4 fold.

If this an accurate size, what do i need to set my margins/page size to (im using openoffice for the manuscript)

Advice appreciated (im amenable to other size page recommendations, as long as theyre large as I really do need to cut my total page count down)

Thank you in advance

Printing :: RE: Looking for a printery/how to prepare my manuscript

Author: jbrukardt
Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 2:52 am (GMT -5)

Sadly that site, although it looks very helpful, only takes pdfs up to 20 MBs, and mine is more than 100 due to the pure amount of text (and the fact that i kept my images fairly uncompressed to maintain fidelity.

I did check with an office depot before I even asked here, and they didnt understand impositions, and claimed not to be able to do large pages (only standards of 8.5x11, or A3 legal). Maybe i just went to a lousy office depot, but it was my impression that they couldnt fit my needs

Printing :: RE: PDF to signatures program

Author: nermander
Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 2:38 am (GMT -5)

I think Easypose will be ported to Windows sooner or later.

The developer has been very active on the Scribus mailing list (that's where I read about the program, and that's where he asked for input about it), and since Scribus is available for Linux, Windows and Mac I think Easypose will be too. Since it's just handling PDF files (and have a GUI) there aren't many problems porting it.

But I agree that it is very hard to find these small goodies.

Printing :: RE: PDF to signatures program

Author: Serendipiti
Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 12:21 am (GMT -5)

I wrote my program because I couldn't find anything similar on the web. Now there's the site posted above and I found this the other day http://www.cheapimposter.com. Easypose is a Linux program and Cheapimposter is on Mac, so we're getting varied platform coverage as well as a choice of programs. As they say in Britain "You wait ages for a bus, the three arrive at the same time."

Both have more features and better GUIs than mine. I'll have to up my game...

Andy

Printing :: RE: PDF to signatures program

Author: nermander
Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 10:15 pm (GMT -5)

Ah, the name is not EzPose but EasyPose... The logo though is EZPoZ.

http://easypose.die-buehne.net/

Printing :: RE: Large Format Printers

Author: nermander
Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 8:34 pm (GMT -5)

As you already have discovered, planning your product is the key to make it cost effective.

To print as cheap as possible you need to make sure you use each printed sheet efficiently and minimize cutting and other extra processing as much as possible.

Printing :: RE: PDF to signatures program

Author: nermander
Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 8:30 pm (GMT -5)

I have been using Multivalent (together with some wrapping scripts) but there is a project in works called EzPose that has graphical interface (for example you can do a "virtual folding" of your sheet).

(I can never find the Ezpose homepage when I look for it...)

EzPose does however currently use LaTeX(!) as it's backend engine to handle the PDFs. But I think he is going to switch to some PDF library.

Bookbinding :: Help Identifying Antique Book Case

Author: kittenbot
Subject: Help Identifying Antique Book Case
Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 8:14 pm (GMT -5)

Hey all, I need some help indentfying/classifying an antique book I found. Actually, just the case. I was at a flea market today in Eugene, Oregon and found what I think may be a treasure. The overall height is about 4" by 3", and it's a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. It was published by the Little Leather Libraries Corporation, New York, but there is no date. I did a little research, and LLLC was founded in 1916 and changed their name in 1925 when they ran out of "the green volumes." At this website, http://home.earthlink.net/~littlelibrary/type-4.html, I found out that it was printed sometime between '20 and '24. They were sold in groups of30, 100, 200, individually, or even put inside Whitman Samplers to advertise the sets. They were also advertised on the back of magazines like National Geographic for mail order. From what I can tell, people are selling these book for anywhere between $3.50 and 50-90$ apiece, depending on the version and condition. This one was version IV, and is in good condition, but not excellent condition.

Here's the kicker. It's in a sterling silver filigree case with a chain. It's engraved with a script capitol E, and the marks "German Sterling" and "patent pending"

I would appreciate any thoughts people have on the case and the book. As the book was part of the first ever attempt to mass-market books in this country, it is an antique but not necessarily that rare. I think it's the case that's going to be more special here. It was proably custom made to fit the books and engraved for the person it was made for.

Thanks,
Michele

Printing :: RE: PDF to signatures program

Author: BCWatson
Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 12:30 pm (GMT -5)

User selection is always a good option if the code is not too bad. I can see many uses for both ways of doing things.

Printing :: RE: Large Format Printers

Author: BCWatson
Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 12:19 pm (GMT -5)

Wow Thanks for all the info.

A bit of an overload but lots to mull over.

again I appreciate your info and thoughts.

Printing :: RE: Large Format Printers

Author: marktweedie
Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 7:57 am (GMT -5)

I have an Epson 2100 (the 2200 is equivalent state-side) which will print up to A3+ (483 x 330mm). It will only print in portrait orientation at this size. As the grain of paper often runs up and down, when you want to fold into signatures with the grain you end up with a maximum page width of 165mm (i.e. half the width of the paper). It is great for tall thin books! I have come to the conclusion that "guarding" the sheets (pasting two single sheets together after printing) is the only really viable way of using this printer for large books with the grain running laterally. This actually works quite well but may not be what you require.

The issue for you is getting paper of the correct weight with cross-wise grain direction if you wanted to use a printer like this and still be able to fold cleanly. If your 17" x 11" book were in landscape format you could then use paper in rolls which would make everything possible. If you wish to print portrait-format, then you will need paper of 22" width and an A3+ printer is not suitable, you will need a bigger model at substantially greater cost.

The Epson 2100 is no longer available and has been replaced by the R2400. The next model up is the Epson Stylus Pro 3800 printing A2+ (458 mm x 610 mm or 18 x 24 in). Here in the UK you would expect to pay 900GBP/$1800 which is about twice the price of the 2400. Whichever way you go with these large format Epsons you will get superb print quality. Ink costs are high so you might want to consider a continuous inking system rather than individual ink cartridges which will add another 50% or so the the initial cost but will repay itself many times over for large print runs, especially with photos.

The final thing to consider is that for accurate colour reproduction you will need to print using the correct ICC profile for the printer/paper combination you use and have a method of processing and outputting pages combining text and photos together which gives this colour fidelity without degrading the text output with aliasing.

I hope that helps. I have spent a lot of time puzzling this one out and as yet haven't really found the solution which fits my budget/quality requirements so I am still seeking the final answer myself! Good luck.

Mark

PS As an afterthought, if you are printing a large quantity of books you might find these desktop printers slow. Mine takes at least 5 minutes for a sheet of A3. The big Epsons may be quicker, you would have to enquire.

Printing :: RE: PDF to signatures program

Author: Serendipiti
Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 3:45 am (GMT -5)

Always glad to help and thanks for the feedback.

I'm currently trying to add a feature allowing the user to set the size of the output, so you could make the printed area smaller or larger within the bounds of the size of paper. At the moment the output sizes are 120mmx180mm (A paperback size), 150mmx205mm (B paperback size) and Full paper size which is half the size of the paper in the printer setting. I think that a 'Custom size' option would be more flexible for some users.

As for merging the PDFs, PDFTK would do the job (though I imagine you already know about it). Or I could add a feature allowing users to choose single or split PDFs. What do you think?

Andy

Printing :: RE: PDF to signatures program

Author: BCWatson
Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 3:19 am (GMT -5)

Yes the Program works wonderfully.

Like I said I would rather Print all Odd pages then reload the pages to print even pages. But I see where you are coming from in your logic... and as if to punctuate your thoughts I was printing last night and I had my printer jam while I was out of the room. Because it was separate file it was easier to fix. and I suppose if I ever needed to I could merger the PDFs to make 2 bigger files 1 per side.

But yes Thank you for the excellent Program. I really like reaping the benefits of other's hard work.

Printing :: RE: PDF to signatures program

Author: Serendipiti
Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 11:23 pm (GMT -5)

Hi BCWatson

The clever stuff in the program is done by the open source libraries itext(chopping and rearranging) and JPedal(rendering) which I didn't write. I am still learning how to fit everything together and trying to fix the glitches. I'll look into the rendering.

The separate files are primarily to keep the signature sheets physically bunched together. I don't have a duplex printer, so I print one side of a signature, flip the sheets and print the other side. If the printer jams or pulls two sheets through there is a limit to the amount of ruined sheets since signatures tend to be around 8 sheets. If the signatures were in one file and all printed successfully you would still have to search through and separate them.

The perfect binding was a feature that I put in and never used. Each sheet has 4 consecutive pages when folded, the idea being that you fold every sheet individually to create a block, then trim the spine edge and glue. I haven't tried it yet and don't know if the idea itself is feasible.

It occurs to me that I haven't really thought about the documentation for the program. I'll work on it.

Apart from that, does the program do what you want and expect? I've been writing and using it for so long now that I lack the fresh eye that a new user has and so I sometimes miss the obvious.

Andy