[scribus] [Fwd: Using Scribus for book-signature layout]

John Jason Jordan johnxj at comcast.net
Thu Oct 13 15:48:59 UTC 2011


On Thu, 13 Oct 2011 08:49:50 -0400
"Tom Connolly" <tconnolly at embarqmail.com> dijo:

>Imposition should be left up to the printer. The OP indicates a folded
>signature would serve better because of the gluing is an incorrect
>assumption, as the machine that applies the glue first removes about
>1/16 at the folded edge so the glue will come into contact with each
>leaf. 

This might be correct for some very small home-size binding machines
designed to bind only cut sheet books. In the world of printing larger
volumes the binding machines do not normally notch the spine. The
signatures are first stitched, then gathered into the book block. Notching
after stitching would remove the stitching.

Take some books down off your shelf and look at the spine from the top
and bottom. If all the pages are perfectly evenly spaced, then the book
was printed as cut sheets, and bound as you describe (with
notching). If you see the signatures, then you can be sure the
signatures were stitched, else the inside pages would fall out. 

I own three binding machines and each one, even though they are
all fairly small, has the option to turn off the notching wheel. The
machines were made with that option for cases where I want to bind a
book with signatures.

Note that binding a book with signatures makes a better bind. The
stitching is very secure, and the glue is compressed up into the voids
between signatures, gripping the edge of the signature much better than
glue forced into notches in cut sheets.



More information about the scribus mailing list