What is binding?

Binding is the act of holding a group of pages in a booklet or book.  Many methods of binding exist, the most common methods are use gluing, sewing, and stitching with staples or a combination of these techniques.  Binding increases the durability, value and look of the book.

When to use each type of binding?

Different types of binding make sense based three factors;

1. Your budget

2. The quantity of books to be produced

3. Thickness of the book

First, if the project requires a modest budget, the binding options that make most sense include pad binding, saddle stitch, and wiro binding.  If the project has a mid range budget, consider inter-screw, saddle sewn and oversewn.  Higher end binding techniques include perfect binding, lay flat and case binding.

Second, if the quantity of books needed is very small consider the binding.

Methods that involve manual labour or have a low setup; pad binding, saddle sewn, oversewn, saddle stitch, inters-crew and wiro.  With medium quantities an inexpensive option is saddle stitch and PUR or perfect binding becomes more affordable.

Finally, the thickness of the book or number of pages often helps determine what type of book binding to select.  For example, saddle stitching is for thin books of 48pp or less typically. Mid-size books between 5mm and 15mm thick work well with sewing, wiro binding, perfect binding and case bound books. Thick books are often wiro bound, case bound, or inter-screw.