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Today, the majority of books are printed by offset lithography. When a book is printed the pages

are laid out on the plate so that after the printed sheet is folded the pages will be in the correct

sequence. Books tend to be manufactured nowadays in a few standard sizes. The sizes of books

are usually specified as trim size: the size of the page after the sheet has been folded and

trimmed. Trimming involves cutting approximately 1/8 off top, bottom and fore-edge (the edge

opposite to the spine) as part of the binding process in order to remove the folds so that the pages

can be opened. The standard sizes result from sheet sizes (therefore machine sizes) which

became popular 200 or 300 years ago, and have come to dominate the industry. These standard

trim sizes will often vary slightly depending on the particular printing presses used, and on the

imprecision of the trimming operation. The European book manufacturing industry works to a

completely different set of standards in comparison with UK and USA.

Some books, particularly those with shorter runs (i.e. of which fewer copies are to be made) 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. On a

sheet-fed press a stack of sheets of paper stands at one end of the press, and each sheet passes

through the press individually. The paper will be printed on both sides and delivered, flat, as a

stack of paper at the other end of the press. These sheets then have to be folded on another

machine which uses bars, rollers and cutters to fold the sheet up into one or more signatures. A

signature is a section of a book, usually of 32 pages, but sometimes 16, 48 or even 64 pages.

After the signatures are all folded they are gathered: placed in sequence in bins over a circulating

belt onto which one signature from each bin is dropped. Thus as the line circulates a complete

book is collected together in one stack, next to another, and another.

A web press carries out the folding itself, delivering bundles of signatures ready to go into the

gathering line. Notice that when the book is being printed it is being printed one (or two)

signatures at a time, not one complete book at a time. Thus if there are to be 10,000 copies

printed, the press will run 10,000 of the first form (the pages imaged onto the first plate and its

back-up plate, representing one or two signatures), then 10,000 of the next form, and so on till all

the signatures have been printed. Actually, because there is a known average spoilage rate in

each of the steps in the books progress through the manufacturing system, if 10,000 books are to

be made, the printer will print between 10,500 and 11,000 copies so that subsequent spoilage will

still allow the delivery of the ordered quantity of books. Sources of spoilage tend to be mainly

make-readies.

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. The

main part of making-ready is however getting the ink/water balance right, and ensuring that the

inking is even across the whole width of the paper. This is done by running paper through the

press and printing waste pages while adjusting the press to improve quality. Desitometers are

used to ensure even inking and consistency from one form to another. As soon as the pressman

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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.

After the signatures are folded and gathered, they move into the bindery. In the middle of the last

century there were still many trade binders stand-alone binding companies which did noprinting, specializing in binding alone. At that time, largely because of the dominance of

letterpress printing, the pattern of the industry was for typesetting and printing to take place in

one location, and binding in a different factory. When type was all metal, a typical books worth

of type would be bulky, fragile and heavy. The less it was moved in this condition the better: so

it was almost invariable that 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 the increasing

computerization of the process 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. A paperback binding line (a number of pieces of machinery linked by conveyor

belts) involves few steps. The gathered signatures, book blocks, will be fed into the line where

they will one by one be gripped by plates converging from each side of the book, turned spine up

and advanced towards a gluing station. En route the spine of the book block will be ground off

leaving a roughened edge to the tightly gripped collection of pages. The grinding leaves fibers

which will grip onto the glue which is then spread onto the spine of the book. Covers then meet

up with the book blocks, and one cover is dropped onto the glued spine of each book block, and

is pressed against the spine by rollers. The book is then carried forward to the trimming station,

where a three-knife trimmer will simultaneously cut the top and bottom and the fore-edge of the

paperback to leave clear square edges. The books are then packed into cartons, or packed on

skids, and shipped.

Binding a hardback is more complicated. Look at a hardback book and you will see the cover

overlaps the pages by about 1/8 all round. These overlaps are called squares. The blank piece of

paper inside the cover is called the endpaper, or endsheet: it is of somewhat stronger paper than

the rest of the book as it is the endpapers that hold the book into the case. The endpapers will be

tipped to the first and last signatures before the separate signatures are placed into the bins on the

gathering line. Tipping involves spreading some glue along the spine edge of the folded

endpaper and pressing the endpaper against the signature. The gathered signatures are then glued

along the spine, and the book block is trimmed, like the paperback, but will continue after this to

the rounder and backer. The book block together with its endpapers will be gripped from the

sides and passed under a roller with presses it from side to side, smashing the spine down and out

around the sides so that the entire book takes on a rounded cross section: convex on the spine,

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concave at the fore-edge, with ears projecting on either side of the spine. Then the spine is

glued again, a paper liner is stuck to it and headbands and footbands are applied. Next a crash

lining (an open weave cloth somewhat like a stronger cheesecloth) is usually applied,

overlapping the sides of the spine by an inch or more. Finally the inside of the case, which has

been constructed and foil-stamped off-line on a separate machine, is glued on either side (but not

on the spine area) and placed over the book block. This entire sandwich is now gripped from the

outside and pressed together to form a solid bond between the endpapers and the inside of the

case. The crash lining, which is glued to the spine of the pages, but not the spine of the case, is

held between the endpapers and the case sides, and in fact provides most of the strength holding

the book block into the case. The book will then be jacketed (most often by hand, allowing this

stage to be an inspection stage also) before being packed ready for shipment.

The sequence of events can vary slightly, and usually the entire sequence does not occur in one

continuous pass through a binding line. What has been described above is unsewn binding, now

increasingly common. The signatures of a book can also be held together by Smyth sewing.

Needles pass through the spine fold of each signature in succession, from the outside to the

center of the fold, sewing the pages of the signature together and each signature to its neighbors.

McCain sewing, often used in schoolbook binding, involves drilling holes through the entire

book and sewing through all the pages from front to back near the spine edge. Both of these

methods mean that the folds in the spine of the book will not be ground off in the binding line.

This is true of another technique, notch binding, where gashes about an inch long are made at

intervals through the fold in the spine of each signature, parallel to the spine direction. In the

binding line glue is forced into these notches right to the center of the signature, so that every

pair of pages in the signature is bonded to every other one, just as in the Smyth sewn book. The

rest of the binding process is similar in all instances. Sewn and notch bound books can be boundas either hardbacks or paperbacks.

Making cases happens off-line and prior to the books arrival at the binding line. In the most

basic case making, two pieces of cardboard are placed onto a glued piece of cloth with a space

between them into which is glued a thinner board cut to the width of the spine of the book. The

overlapping edges of the cloth (about 5/8 all round) are folded over the boards, and pressed

down to adhere. After case making the stack of cases will go to the foil stamping area. Metal

dies, photoengraved elsewhere, are mounted in the stamping machine and rolls of foil are

positioned to pass between the dies and the case to be stamped. Heat and pressure cause the foil

to detach from its backing and adhere to the case. Foils come in various shades of gold and silverand in a variety pigment colors, and by careful setup quite elaborate effects can be achieved by

using different rolls of foil on the one book. Cases can also be made from paper which has been

printed separately and then protected with clear film lamination. A three-piece case is made

similarly but has a different material on the spine and overlapping onto the sides: so it starts out

as three pieces of material, one each of a cheaper material for the sides and the different, stronger

material for the spine.

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