PUR Binding or perfect binding
We must have printed hundreds of jobs that are finished as “perfect bound” books. This means the text sections are folded, and “milled” (to produce a rough edge that glue will adhere to on the spine edge); then they are gathered one on top of the other, and a cover with a spine is wrapped around the text blocks, with glue injected into the spine to hold the text sections in place, before the whole thing is trimmed on three edges to produce a neatly finished book. (We usually recommend a slight variant of this process called “PUR binding”, which is the same process, but uses a stronger glue.)
In order to make the books as strong as possible, the binder creates what is known as a “hinge flap” on the front and back covers. This is created by placing a crease approximately 5mm from the edge of the spine. The glue that is injected into the spine also goes here, so that for this small area the cover glues down flat onto the first and last text pages. If you check any books produced in this way you will find that most have this feature.
Creating the right artwork for perfect binding
However, this creates a problem in the supply of artwork that is almost never addressed in advance. This is, that if the intention is to have an image that reads over between the inside front cover and first text page (or the last text page and inside back cover), an allowance needs to be made for the image being lost in two places; both on the inside of the front cover and on the first text page.
Below is an example of what one of our clients wanted to act as a spread on the inside front cover and first text page of a book we produced for them.
If we hadn’t made the adjustments for the hinge flap allowance, we would have ended up with something like this.
To correct this problem, in fact you have to duplicate the image twice, and (in the case of the front cover) move the duplicated left hand side to the left, and duplicated right hand side to the right, to allow for the two areas being lost. So in the end what you print will look something like this.
But of course, when the duplicated areas are stuck to each other, what you will see will be the image going (seamlessly – we hope) across the join.
The same applies (in reverse) to the inside back covers.
Your perfect partner for perfect binding
With three decades of experience in printing, even the mysteries of perfect binding have been solved here at PrintHouse. This means we are your ideal partner when it comes to producing PUR books or catalogues.
Find out how we can help by giving us a call on 020 8963 0123 or by using this form for us to get back to you.
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