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Designing Perfect Bound Books


Published time: 2012-08-30 11:15

Designing a book for the first time can be difficult. This explains a few first time mistakes, and what to do to properly design perfect bound books.

Design your perfect bound books in single pages, not spreads

Perfect bound books are not printed in spreads (except for the front/back cover) because, in the end, we glue together sheets that are the dimension of the book. For instance, if we was making an 8.5” x 11” book, the resulting pages we would be binding would be 8.5” x 11” in dimension. Therefore, we would not be able to use 2-page spreads, except for the covers. Converting the spreads to single pages on our end can be very difficult, especially when the middle of the spreads (where the two pages separate) don’t have any bleed space.

Account for viewing loss of the inside pages due to the spine

When designing inside pages for perfect bound books, the extra area that the spine takes up, also known as the gutter, must be accounted for. Depending on the size of the book, the gutter can be anywhere from 1/4” – 3/8.” An example of a books gutter can be seen below.

 

Example of gutter width in a perfect bound book

gutter width can take up 1/4″ to 3/8″ from the page

Therefore, there must be an extra 1/4”-3/8” of safety margin space on the side of the page where the gutter will be. No text can be in this safety margin, as well as critical images that you want visible. You will need to keep track of which pages will be on the left and right side of your perfect bound book so you can correctly place your safety margins on the correct side of the page.

Don’t expect images that cover two pages to be perfectly aligned.

Having images extending 2 pages on a perfect bound book is not practical because the gutter will break the continuity of the image.  It can be extremely hard to align an image spread with regards to the gutter because the gutter size can vary depending on the thickness of the book. An example of a 2-page image spread (from a proof) that was eaten by the gutter (but later fixed) is shown below. The flag is obviously broken up from the gutter and the overall image is not visually appealing.

 

Example of misaligned pages in a perfect bound book

Example of how the gutter can affect 2-page images

If you want two page image spreads, use fold-out page spreads

If 2 page spreads are absolutely necessary for your perfect bound book, you can have the spread be a fold-out sheet. The spread will be printed on a single sheet that’s the size of 2 pages and the print will not have any splits. MGX Copy offers this service as a custom order to anyone who wants foldout page spreads in their perfect bound books.

Example of foldout sheet (closed) in a perfect bound book

foldout sheet closed

Example of foldout sheet (opened) in a perfect bound book

foldout sheet open

Designing spines

It is important that the spine of a perfect bound book is designed properly because the width of the spine needs to be exactly the width of the book. The spine of the book is attached to the center of the spread of the front and back cover. For books with a solid color front/back cover and spine, this can be relatively easy, and the spine width can be overcompensated for. The printer can trim off the extra width from the spread without worrying about the design. If the spine is a different color from the front or back color, this can lead to problems with part of the spine moving to the cover and not being completely centered. Thus, it is good design practice to make the spine the same color as the cover pages. Here is an example of a cover spread with a 3/4″ spine. Instead of the full bleed spread being 17.25″x11.25″ like a regular spread, the spread is 18″x11.25″ due to the addition of the spine.

Example of a perfect bound book spine design

perfect bound cover spread with a 3/4″ spine

Figuring out spine width

Calculating the width of the spine can be tricky because the toner adds width to the paper. Depending on what is being printed, and how many pages the perfect bound book is, the toner can add up to 1/8” of thickness to the book. We has a spine width calculator (coming soon!) that will calculate the thickness of a book without accounting for toner. Thus, the spine thickness value given will be slightly thinner than what it will be.