Digital Technology And the Bindery

Making Booklets

Until recently, there were just two predominant booklet making methods. For longer runs, multiple-up press sheets are signature-folded off-line, then loaded into gathering stations that are in-line with a stitcher and three-knife. This permits high throughput speeds, lets you build high sheet-count booklets and delivers a tightly folded, three-side trimmed product. But saddle gathering lines are expensive and have large footprints. Large-format sheets must be separately folded into signatures before being loaded. Finally, saddle lines are notoriously time-consuming to set up and change over, making them inefficient for short-runs.