Booklet Printing and Saddle Stitch Booklets (Booklets / Catalogs)

Booklet Printing:  Saddle Stitched and Stapled Booklets:

Booklets are multi-page documents that require multiple sheets in print to fully reveal themselves. As a cohesive group of sheets, they will become one single comprehensive piece that contains all of the information, articles, images that are part of the whole document.

Two staples will hold the sheets together. The staples are located on the spine of the booklet, pass-through all of the sheets, and hold them together.

Your order will be Proudly Printed in the USA by our own 5-Star Team!

Before you start, these quick questions will make your estimate easier to get:

• #1 - What is the size of the booklet when closed?


• #2 - How many pages total, including the covers, will my booklet have? Tip: It has to be a multiple of "4"


• #3 - Do I want my booklet printed in full color or just black?


• #4 - Select the paper stock that matches your intent.


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How to Count Pages in a Stapled Booklet?

The simple answer is that you count pages as you would in any book, with the important consideration that the covers should be counted as well. We prepared this graphic to clarify even further

When counting pages to print a booklet, count each side as one page, starting with the front cover

This graph shows how a booklet comes together, including the location of the staples that hold it together

• What is a page? It is one side of a sheet of paper. When the booklet is closed each side of each side becomes a page.
• Does the cover count as a page? Yes: The front cover is counted as PAGE #1
• The backside of the front cover: It is PAGE #2 regardless of whether it blank or printed,
• The next page The page that is opposite to the inside of the cover will be identified as PAGE #3 regardless of whether it is printed or blank. The process extends to the whole piece.
• Pagination: From the perspective of pagination, it is a common practice to identify the first page after the cover, as page 1, but that is for readership purposes. For production purposes, you must adhere to the ruleset.

Quick Tips:  How to count the number of pages in a booklet: Pages? Sheets? Check it out! 

Paper Selection: Popular Stocks and Cases of Use

• Product Catalogs: Product catalogs present products, specifications, pictures, and images that relate to the advantages of using the offered products: Glossy paper is recommended for the inside pages because of the smoothness of the print.
• Event Books: In this type of publication, you will find schedules, program descriptions, and advertising. Both uncoated paper or glossy paper could be good choices. If you expect the assistants to take notes on their saddle-stitched programs, uncoated paper is the way to go. The covers can be made out of thicker coverstock, usually glossy
• Training manuals: Uncoated papers for stapled training manuals are our best suggestion
• Magazines as used in museums, newsletters to contact members: Both options, glossy or uncoated are appropriate. Most institutions will choose uncoated paper because of budget decisions, which don't affect the quality of the communication achieved

Booklets - File Preparation: How to prepare your artwork so that it prints successfully

Following these steps, you will be able to create artwork for booklets that can print correctly. This piece focuses on the mechanical file preparation work, not on the creative side of the booklet.

Other resources available to you: Do you want to know how to create a PDF? If so, click here

• Select the Color Space: When creating the artwork for the printing of booklets use settings in your graphic design software for the CMYK color space as opposed to RGB"
  
• Image Resolution: Use 300 dpi for the images and for the creation of the file. Images pulled from the internet are low resolution and will look pixelated, no matter what you do with them in order to try to improve their quality.
  Some of the creative software available will only create low-resolution images by default, and that can't be changed. Use professional software instead whenever possible.
  


• Single pages or spreads? You should only provide single pages with bleed and cut marks in your file. We will impose it to build the spreads.
  


• Create Margins and Safe Zones in your Design: In multipage books, you will notice that the thickness of the spine can be big, especially when the project has over 36 pages. At that point, because the sheets are folded, the cut marks start to lose some alignment from one sheet to the other. That is normal. What you should keep in mind is that the copy and information in your publication has to have generous margins so that nothing gets cut-out
  
• File Output: Provide PDF File Format: Your document should be prepared in PDF format as opposed to jpg, tiff, png and other raster formats. Each page of the booklet should be its own page in the PDF file and include bleed and crop marks. In other words, if your booklet has 8 pages, your PDF file should have 8 pages that we will properly arrange. See Q&A for more details.DO NOT submit reader's spreads, since we can't print out of it. Your file need to be replaced.
  

Frequently Asked Questions - FAQ

Question: Which are the Most Common Sizes of Booklets

Answer:The most common sizes have the size of the pages to be 8.5"x11" which is a LETTER SIZE, or half page 5.5"x8.5"
Other sizes are possible as well. Examples are 8"x8" square booklets, and billboard-style booklets. We can produce them all, but their prices are not reflected in the calculator. Request a custom quote via a phone call at 1-877-421-2668 or submitting a cutom quote request.

Question: How do the sheets hold together in a stapled book?

Answer: The multiple-sheet-booklet is held together through the use of 2 staples that are placed on the spine of the booklet

Question: Is there a minimum or maximum number of pages required to make a booklet?

Answer: On our instant online calculator, you will be able to configure and place orders for books of up to 60 pages including the covers. GOOD NEWS: THAT'S NOT THE LIMIT! Our production equipment can handle custom books of more than 60 pages.  Please call us at 1-877-421-0668 for projects that go beyond the limits of the tool.

Question: Within the upper limit of 60 pages, can I order any number of pages between 0 and 60?

Answer:  The total number of pages including the covers should be a multiple of 4
 Just as a reminder, in stapled booklets, the sheets get folded in half, providing 4 viewing sides, or 4 pages. 
 

Question: Do stapled booklets have a flat spine?

Answer:  The spine forms a sort of an edge, not a flat rectangular area. Therefore there is no room to print messages on the spine

Question: Which file format should clients submit to order booklets?

Answer: We prefer a PDF document,
- where the pages are for single pages, not spreads,
- each page with its own crop mark and bleed.
Order of pages:The pages in the PDF file should be organized from first to last. The first page should be the front cover, and the last one would be the back cover.
As part of our work in the process of print preparation, we will combine the pages so that your book reads as planned once printed. If you have created one jpg image for every page and can't create a PDF document, make sure that your documents include bleed and crop marks. Name your files sequentially as in this example: Page1.jgp / Page2.jpg....... etc. We will convert them for you and share a proof.

Question: When I upload a PDF document, will I see an instant proof?

Answer: You will be able to review the file as you created it, to make sure that you have uploaded the correct document. You will be able to flip pages and go through every single page of your documents. Remember that you need a number of pages that is a multiple of 4 (4 pages / 8 pages / 12 pages / 16 pages..... etc)

Did you know? Which machines apply the staples?

The binding method used for stapled or saddle-stitched booklets requires the fastening of the individual sheets through staples. 

Take a look at the following image: These are simple machines, but they can be very complex. In one case, the machine that is on the left uses pre-made staples. The samples are pushed through the paper and "closed". The machine on the right side uses a wire instead. The machine cuts the wire in the needed length (which is directly proportional to the thickness of the paper that we are binding), then pushes it through the paper and secures it.

If you need help deciding which specifications would work the best for you, give us a call and our team will guide you so that you order exactly what best works for you.

IMPORTANT: We work Eastern time hours. 
Help-Line - 1-877-421-0668