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Inner margins, Offset printer, Rebuilding to compensate

Engaged ,
Jan 19, 2025 Jan 19, 2025

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My question pertains to the area of responsibility as a designer versus that of the offset printer's. I have a Taschen derrived design with somewhat narrow inner margins (1.2 cm inner, on a 21 x 26 book, with 1.1 outer and 1.5 bottom). Do I/must I be the one who is reponsible for ensuring the book block and all its finer adjustments allow those inner margins to effectively work and not see text/pages creep into the center crease, presumably by adjusting and tweaking those margins and in effect, the book's design (though, granted, I am definitely the one who defines it is 400 pages, hardback, rounded spine, and with hollow back to help it lay flat), OR is it more so the printer's technicians who take my design and make subtle and complex calculations and adjustments to ensure that the inner margins are given enough additional excess paper to bind and pages open properly, without excess arch or bunching, and effectively see my design work optimally and as intended? Do I need to be ready to tweak it all and have this highly complex layout redone in a manner that allows me to make those adjustments if called to do so?

I ask this now, after years of work, as I am faced with a need to determine whether to completely reset and redo this complicated, lengthy, and highly involved/designed architectural book in order to fix/respond to any problem with these inner margins that may arise in its otherwise aesthetically pleasing design, which may not work with the printer in the bound volume. Is it their purview to handle this?

I am in Taiwan, with very limited Chinese, to do this. Our partner printer lacks, for my taste, a sufficiently high-level of language expertise in English to convey these issues to me. A preliminary inquiry into this matter saw a request from them for a sample pdf with markings for cursory review – which led to a (for me with a German-minded approach), disconconcertingly simple "It's OK" response. I don't feel secure in this. 

I'm weary of the common-sense proscription against having narrow margins to avoid potential issues. Yes, that's obvious. However, for various reasons, a still reasonably narrow margin can be an attractive feature within a well-designed layout if executed right. In my design, increasing the inner margin to compensate damages the overall aesthetic. Taschen pulls it off, and in the same format size, and as a hardback. However, a key difference in this model (their budget series), is that they're all ~100 pp., while mine is 400pp, thus affecting the mechanical action and drape (and therefore, text falling into crease).

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Jan 19, 2025 Jan 19, 2025

Imposition issues are the printer's domain. They are expert (or should be) at calculating the proper amount of creep and bottling required. Chances are they aren't printing more than 16-page signatures, which for a bound book doesn't need much in the way of adjustment. This is definitely not your issue to calculate. As long as you have sufficient margins to accommodate the type of binding you are using (e.g. you wouldn't want too small an interior margin if you are perfect binding).

There are al

...

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Community Expert ,
Jan 19, 2025 Jan 19, 2025

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The very short form of the answer is: discuss this with your printer. Not a printer, not some printing advice you find on line, but with the firm/person who will actually put your project on paper and bind it.

 

That said, most commercial printers, especially book printers, do NOT want designers to try and tweak and outguess their print setup and apply things like creep (the small increase in inside margin to compensate for folding) or do any kind of imposition at all. They want clean, flat pages that are identically formatted (at least, as to margins) all the way thorugh, so their RIP and setup will exactly match the print process, imposition, signature folding, gathering, binding etc.

 

I'm not sure any commercial printer should even ask a designer to apply these settings and compensations. But ask yours for a definitve answer. (And ask the next printer of the next project the same questions, in time and turn.)

 

Designers only need to worry about imposition, creep, trim limits etc. if they are printing the project in-house, and then it's still often a matter of leaving such details to a quality printer's driver/setup/booklet utility.


┋┊ InDesign to Kindle (& EPUB): A Professional Guide, v3.1 ┊ (Amazon) ┊┋

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Engaged ,
Jan 19, 2025 Jan 19, 2025

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Thank you. To observe how the book will indeed function, including all the properties as to how the pages/spreads sit and move, and how text sits in relation to the inside crease, is it standard practice for offset printers to first produce a dummy for us, with the paper and all the chosen elements? I was going to have a digital printing shop make a dummy to review layout, which likely won't be/cannot be on the selected paper and won't be a highly accurate facimile of the physical book, but helpful for reviewing layout and proofing. Yet, would the offset printer typically be doing this as well – with their binding, on our chosen stock; and would it be print offset, or do they here default to using a cheaper digital approach for the one book? (The economics of offset printing a single book are surely absurd.)

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Community Expert ,
Jan 19, 2025 Jan 19, 2025

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Each printer, including single-copy "repro" shops, should apply their own adjustments that make the most of their printing format and tech... but a repro shop may not do anything with things like inner margin and adjustment. A commercial printer will always — or should always! — apply such adjustments to get the best, most balanced result from their precise printing methods and setup.

 

It does take some skill and knowledge at the design level, as printers who are not working with you as a professional partner will pretty much just print whatever you send, as long as it meets certain minimum values. (A true "partner" will have an account manager overseeing things and sending back recommended adjustments for margins, font, etc. — but that's pretty old-school/commercial-level accommodation, any more. For most printers, they will check and do their best, but you're on your own in getting the overall setup and esthetics the way you want them.

 

I'd just suggest that bulk printing is also pretty old-school; if you go through KDP or Lulu, you will get fairly precise print proofs as a step in the process and are only committed to one copy at a time. Unless you want/need 1000 copies or more on your doorstep, commercial print-on-demand is the better way to go. And it can be difficult to tell quality PoD from bulk trade printing; I suspect a lot of commercial books use short-run/PoD as the tradeoff between unit cost and inventory cost, and only the sharpest eye can tell it's not from a trade bindery.


┋┊ InDesign to Kindle (& EPUB): A Professional Guide, v3.1 ┊ (Amazon) ┊┋

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Engaged ,
Jan 19, 2025 Jan 19, 2025

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Just to avoid the wrong impression and to clarify, I have 20-years' exposure to PoD, which, granted, for literature, is generally fine, yet this is not a PoD book, just as no Taschen or Prestel, or other high-end artbook publisher tends to take that route for their list. PoD cannot specify Sappi Magno Matt stock. PoD has improved but offset has the color accuracy, detail, and range of choices in stocks and techniques, and remains standard for high-quality art books.

 

It's a 1000-copy 1st run with one foreign edition planned and subsequent printings likely. I manage a portion of the literary estate of a noted midcentury architect, which, in this case, is not a fit with Lulu or LS territory due to the aesthetic requirements and volume, and for a work that required four years to curate, edit, and design. It involves hundreds of Shulman and Hesse images scanned from original gelatin-silver prints, original drawings from the archive, etc. 

 

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Community Expert ,
Jan 19, 2025 Jan 19, 2025

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@Typothalamus

 

How many pages per signature? 

 

EVA or PUR bound?

 

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Engaged ,
Jan 19, 2025 Jan 19, 2025

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Hi Robert. Smyth sewn, so neither just EVA or PUR. Pages per signature would not be our purview, I believe. This is the print partner's to determine, handle. Your view? Smyth sewn for:

  • Better durability
  • Better opening characteristics
  • More appropriate for the archival nature of the content
  • More consistent with the production values of publishers like Taschen
  • Better handling of those narrow margins discussed earlier

 

 

 

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Community Expert ,
Jan 19, 2025 Jan 19, 2025

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@Typothalamus

 

I'm not an expert, but in this case, there shouldn't be too much creep - but the amount will depend on how many pages will be per signature - and pages will be flat - so I'm not sure why do you expect any problems?

 

As @James Gifford—NitroPress said - professional printer would expect a "simple" PDF - without any "extras" - and they should handle everything - they know their machines, etc.

 

Do you have anything "full spread" / on both pages? 

 

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Engaged ,
Jan 19, 2025 Jan 19, 2025

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So in going back to the original post, it really should be all in the hands of the printer to determine the amount of extra paper needed in the inner margin to handle the (far larger than the Taschen model) page count, creep, and particular binding's impact on the inner margin. I'm therefore expecting that smyth sewn binding and the technicians on their end will cover this inner margin concern. As James suggests, the communication directly with the printer is key, but at this juncture I was ascertaining what needs to be done with my original file(s) in terms of reorganizing them to be cope with the needs in this area that may arise. 

The earlier design featured quite a few more full spreads on both pages. This has now been minimized. It is one example of how concern over printing issues affected design.

 

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Community Expert ,
Jan 19, 2025 Jan 19, 2025

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quote

[...] As James suggests, the communication directly with the printer is key. 

 

By Typothalamus

 

As always. 

 

After you told them size, number of pages, size of margins, kind of stock you want, binding, etc. - they should've told you what you should do to avoid problems. 

 

If they didn't - then you should ask. 

 

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Engaged ,
Jan 19, 2025 Jan 19, 2025

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The go-to person managing the account at the printer generates major communication issues, quite typical, unsurprisingly, of our cultural differences, which turn critical in important matters like this. It obstructs clear communication. Anyway, that is all outside the realm of the forum here, but the severity of its impact on the whole process is becoming more clearly identified. A separate topic, but I imagine others have gone through this with so much of the industry abroad as it is. Taiwan is a tremendous place and culture, but there's no room to see matters go awry in miscommunication.

And to note, though we use these terms perhaps too loosely, "creep" (push out) is really the tendency of the inner pages of a sewn or stitched book to extend further from the spine than outer pages. The more pages, the more likely that this will occur

At the same time, though this is not intitutively how we described creep in the above, unless it's a more lay-flat type binding, the arch from the center gets severe with higher page counts and especially with perfect bound books, which means that innner marign arches up more vertically and text can seem to fall down into the center. Printers do compensate for it, I understand, by incrementally adjusting inner margins of innermost spreads.

 

 

 

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Community Expert ,
Jan 19, 2025 Jan 19, 2025

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@Typothalamus

 

Any chance you can meet in person?

 

Better yet - talk with people who will be actually doing the job? 

 

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Engaged ,
Jan 19, 2025 Jan 19, 2025

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I'm in Taiwan now. The next step is to stop the unproductive email exchanges with the rep and be present at the facility more, and talk to whoever I need to, bringing in physical examples. They’re sensible people, but with vastly different communication styles.

 

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Community Expert ,
Jan 19, 2025 Jan 19, 2025

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Imposition issues are the printer's domain. They are expert (or should be) at calculating the proper amount of creep and bottling required. Chances are they aren't printing more than 16-page signatures, which for a bound book doesn't need much in the way of adjustment. This is definitely not your issue to calculate. As long as you have sufficient margins to accommodate the type of binding you are using (e.g. you wouldn't want too small an interior margin if you are perfect binding).

There are also new ways to deal with creep in imposition software that are better than simply adding creep (essentially pushing inward/ourward the page. Some newer software does it by ever so slightly squeezing or expanding the page horizontally. e.g. it might shrink a page 99.6% horizontally which you would never detect. This technique is particularly effective dealing with crossover on a centerspread of a signature.

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