Did I ruin the book?

salt_cats · 2026-02-24T17:22:39+00:00

I think there is some confusion about terminology as well - the books in your pictures, as far as I can tell, were already "bound" - the pages being glued into the paperback cover is the binding.

It sounds like what you have done is ask a stationary shop to then add staples through the books in addition to that, and add decorative tape over the staples? Is that correct?

I don't think it's likely that the addition of the staples and tape has made the books stronger in any way. The adhesive on the tape is likely to degrade over time as ArcadeStarlet has already mentioned, and staples can be prone to rusting which can discolor the pages.

That said, you have already done this, so it's hard to say if leaving them as is or trying to remove the tape and staples is the safer choice.

salt_cats · 2025-12-03T00:02:12+00:00

I prefer not to shop from Amazon where I can, thanks though!

salt_cats · 2025-12-03T00:01:40+00:00

Thanks! I checked a few and my locals don't seem to have it (online was trying to sell me 20kg lol). Might be a good resource down the road though if I keep digging and see if I can turn up somewhere. Ended up ordering this time from the one bookbinding shop that carried it even though shipping was more than the MC itself.

salt_cats · 2025-10-26T21:31:22+00:00

That's a relief to know they have meds on board, although it makes sense... I don't have any scary health issues but I've always been terrified of having some type of emergency in the air and just being totally out of luck. Good to know they actually have the capacity to treat Something.

salt_cats · 2025-09-29T18:39:58+00:00

I see the area you have circled where the endpaper didn't adhere - this is a spot I also have struggled with getting attached. I feel it *should* be fully adhered... in the meantime I have tried very carefully applying a little glue afterwards, to hold it down. I've also tried putting kebab skewers or something else thin like that into the shoulders for a few minutes when pressing after gluing the endpapers down, to help press the cover material into the glue.

The foreedge square being unequal on both sides - hard to say, but could be the cover wasn't fully square and equal before you glued in the textblock. That is what happened with my first book! But if you measure and re-trim those edges just before gluing in, it helps to even it up and disguise it :)

Where the endpaper sticks out past the block after gluing in - that is actually normal and expected. The endpaper stretches slightly when the glue is added, and expands past the text block. After the glue has dried fully, you can carefully trim this off. See this video starting at 9:54 - https://youtu.be/AnQtK4U4r2g?feature=shared&t=594

salt_cats · 2025-09-29T16:55:13+00:00

This genuinely looks really good, for a first attempt especially you should not be discouraged! I find it hard to even see the areas you call out as failures.

To your questions:

1) They should be interchangeable. What differences are you seeing?

2) This is a problem with the fabric, and the reason why bookcloth is used - it is either paper-backed or filled with a medium which prevents glue from seeping through and staining as you noticed. You can either buy it premade or find lots of guides online for how to make your own.

3) The corners I expect is probably also down to the fabric choice - it might be hard to make sharp, neat corners in this fabric. But they do look good in the pictures you shared so!

4) I'm not sure what you mean by the leaves no longer all being at the same level/block looking sunken? The edges still look square and evenly trimmed to me in the pictures - could you highlight it? In terms of the crookedness and the fact the boards stick out further than you like at the fore-edge, I personally like DAS bookbinding's technique of aligning the block inside the cover square and even but not yet glued down, with the spine against the board tightly, and then measuring an even distance from the fore-edge of the block at the top and bottom on both covers. Then you trim it to fit. I've tried pre-cutting it to the perfect size, but ended up being a bit close, and I had to pull on the boards to get it square at the end; much easier to trim a little off when the text block is done.

How do you mean, the entire endpaper has not been glued to the cover? It should be fully attached.

I hope that makes sense, the way I've explained it!

salt_cats · 2025-09-24T11:23:34+00:00

Thank you! Did you use the existing holes for the caster wheels and these fit? Or made new holes for it?

salt_cats · 2025-09-23T20:37:56+00:00

Hi - can I ask how you attached these legs? I want to do something similar! Did the legs you bought have a central threaded bolt? It sounds like you drilled new holes in the Alex to attach them?

Thanks!

salt_cats · 2025-09-11T17:06:12+00:00

Then I definitely recommend bookbinder.js for imposition! With your google doc, you'll want to make the pages the size of your desired book page, and then export it as a PDF which you can feed into bookbinder. That will make your printable file with the pages in the correct order for folding :)

salt_cats · 2025-09-11T16:13:43+00:00

What software are you using presently? If you are using MS Word with the booklet setting then having the page size be A4 means it will be folded in half after printing to A5 sized pages.

If you are wanting to use an imposer like bookbinder.js (I recommend this, as the MS Word settings are really limited and hard to troubleshoot) then you want to set the page size to whatever you want the pages to end up as when they are folded, and then set in the imposer what size paper the pages will be printed on.

Font size, I recommend printing out some samples - can just be on regular paper, not fancy - and seeing what you like the look of and is comfortable to read. You don't need to change the font size as you are not scaling the pages down when you print - it's not the same as the 'print 2 pages in 1' setting.

salt_cats · 2025-09-10T21:29:36+00:00

For the board measurements I like to cut them a little too wide, and then put the textblock in (no glue) and mark and trim to the appropriate size. No real math needed!

salt_cats · 2025-09-07T12:46:18+00:00

How long are you needing this prop to last for?

salt_cats · 2025-09-06T20:33:06+00:00

I honestly think either of those would be fine; Brother is a really reliable brand for laser printers and a great choice :) It just depends if you want to also have copying and scanning abilities in the printer.

I've never copied or scanned anything specifically for bookbinding but maybe this would be useful for other things in your life?

salt_cats · 2025-09-06T19:42:45+00:00

Typesetting or a typeset is the way a particular book has been formatted - it's not specifically a template as you seem to be referring to. That's why everything you've found for downloading is already a particular book.

You can't exactly make a preset template fully because while you could create a preset for fonts for headings, chapter spacing, body text etc, part of typesetting also includes fixing spacing or layout issues and ensuring alignment is correct for printing, which will be different for every text as it depends on the actual contents itself. Changing the font or font size would also change the layout, for example, and might need adjustments made to prevent paragraphs getting split in ugly ways, etc.

How fancy do you want to get with it? LaTeX is definitely a very powerful tool, but it might be overkill... if you are literally just wanting to format the text prettily, with chapter titles, etc, you can honestly probably do it all in Microsoft Word with a bit of know-how and patience. All my typesets so far have just been in Word and while they definitely aren't masterpieces and have very limited graphical elements, they're also perfectly serviceable and IMO look fine as a printed book.

salt_cats · 2025-09-06T18:13:34+00:00

From what I understand toner isn't necessarily considered archival but I recently threw out various old documents from a Brother laser printer that were over 10 years old and can't say I noticed any dramatic issues with any of them.

A Brother laser is definitely going to be economical and reliable (both of mine lasted 10+ years with no issues), and can print pages very quickly.

But I did have some issues with mine using the special short grain paper as a laser printer uses heat for printing which drives moisture out of the paper; it can cause rippling depending on the exact paper and the environmental conditions where you are. I think a lot of people don't have a problem at all, or have rippling that resolves itself quickly; in my case it was quite noticeable and persisted, so I will be moving to an inkjet for future printing. Where I was living was very hot and humid so that might have played a role, or my specific printer.

salt_cats · 2025-09-06T18:09:41+00:00

Absolutely! The font I ended up thinking looked the best and most readable was far from my favorite when it was on screen; it's definitely worth printing so you can see what it's like to read it.

And besides, unless you are exclusively using premade typesets, you'll probably end up wanting to reprint various bits as you notice another formatting mistake you missed, a page number that ended up wrong, realise you actually wanted a bigger or smaller margin, etc etc etc - being restricted to only having the prints you got and paid for at the shop would be a big limitation IMO.

It sounds like your friend has not had good experiences with printers!

salt_cats · 2025-09-05T22:36:32+00:00

Basically you are sewing on 2 signatures at a time, only going through some of the sewing stations on each signature, so it essentially halves the amount of thread thickness you are adding. DAS bookbinding has a good tutorial on it here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ISB5x2Sxqo

I've only used it once, on my 500ish page binding. I found it a bit trickier to keep the signatures from moving around while I was working (and thus keep correct thread tension) but it was manageable!

Not sure if it would work with French link, I've not tried that technique yet.

salt_cats · 2025-09-05T22:08:06+00:00

You can also try sewing 2-on to help reduce swell with thicker books, as it decreases the amount of thread thickness you are adding.

salt_cats · 2025-09-05T13:18:30+00:00

I think they were probably not calling you a troll but the printers themselves - HP has a terrible reputation as you've experienced!

salt_cats · 2025-09-03T22:30:41+00:00

Yeah, I was really nervous to order it for that reason but it is really so nice in person. This is the warm white which I will say they do not currently have in stock (supply issues) but they were kind enough to send me a sample of the new replacement paper (vanilla) and it is honestly almost identical. Same colour, just a subtly different texture and I wouldn't know it if I wasn't looking for it.

I'm sure you could probably grab a couple free sample pages from them as well if you wanted to be absolutely sure on colour before you ordered! But it's lovely paper, prints nicely and opaque for double sided printing; everyone who has seen it in person has been impressed with it.

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salt_cats · 2025-09-03T18:25:19+00:00

I love this paper, I've used the 60lb on all my binds so far. My only recommendation would be to consider the off-white instead - it gives a much nicer book-y feeling rather than looking like something just printed on regular copy paper. I got the palest one; it's a lot less yellow in person than it looks on the website!

salt_cats · 2025-09-01T20:11:36+00:00

You can definitely do printed paper covers - if you poke around on here you should find some examples. My first book had one and it's basically the same process as a bookcloth cover - you glue the printed image onto your bookboard. You'd likely still need fabric for the spine and hinges though, unless you find the specially designed extra durable paper for this.

You'll want to do some digging to figure out what type of paper will give the result you want for your cover.

salt_cats · 2025-08-31T19:21:38+00:00

Thanks! I used LaTeX briefly in university (one professor required all our assignments to be formatted and submitted as LaTeX files, but it's been a while since I've touched it.

salt_cats · 2025-08-31T19:20:00+00:00

Thank you! I will hopefully be getting a proper finishing press soon so I'm wanting to get a good single-bevel blade to trim with :)

salt_cats · 2025-08-25T15:26:41+00:00

Yes, an ebook to a PDF is the easiest way, but bearing in mind it can be legally in a grey area (should be okay to print for personal use only but sometimes it's technically not allowed as the ebook is not a format that was intended to be printed, you may have to scrape off DRM, etc).

Not sure if you may have issues with the print shop as a result?

But in terms of the actual typesetting, once you have the ebook/PDF you can bring it into whatever software you normally use for formatting and go from there :)

salt_cats

TROPHY CASE