printing & cutting booklets for the first time

[bcr]

folks, i've never done booklets before, but have been asked for some A5 stapled booklets on a short deadline. grateful for any help.

when i'm cutting the booklets (three-sided trim) i'm having a hard time getting them to cut straight. I wasn't sure whether this is due to the accuracy of the cutter, registration of the prints (or alignment of cover with signatures), or movement of the booklet during cutting.

I'm spreading the booklets flat on the cutter, then pressing them against the back/side with a jogging block. there's then quite a bit of nudging and tweaking to get the laser to align straight with the trim marks. This means i can only really cut 3 booklets at a time, which is going to take forever.

to check the accuracy of the cutter/straightness of the blade, i just cut a sheet of a4 in half, and stacked the two halves, and they seem to align right. Not sure if there is a more conclusive method?

I think it's mostly due to the shifting of the booklets whilst clamped. Does anyone have any suggestions on how i can keep the booklets in place whilst cutting them? I've seen suggestions for clamps. I don't think i can get one ordered in time, but may still order something for next time.

any suggestions gratefully received. and excuse my ignorance - i've never done this before and am almost entirely self-taught.

p.s. the document was not print ready (no bleeds or anything) and we did not have any SRA4 stock. So i've scaled the documents down to fit onto A4 and added trim marks to be slightly under A5 booklet size.

equipment: ricoh c5310, SR5120 booklet maker, Ideal 4315 stack cutter, TF prep.

 

[pippip]

Do top and bottom cuts first and have approx 8-10 books split and facing each other. so 4/5 with spine on left and balance with spine on the right. This levels out the clamp pressure on the pile and stops them turning. Then last cut just as normal.

As per video -

 

[bcr]

Do top and bottom cuts first and have approx 8-10 books split and facing each other. so 4/5 with spine on left and balance with spine on the right. This levels out the clamp pressure on the pile and stops them turning. Then last cut just as normal.

As per video -

thanks Pippip.

I tried this method it - seems to work quite well but then lots of the copies are getting nicks on the spine.
I've tried wrapping the stack of books in an additional sheet of card but it doesn't seem to help.

any ideas?

 

[pippip]

We get those little nicks too, do you mean a little tear at the bottom where its cut?

I generally just position the books so it happens on the rear of the book where possible. Happens more with larger paged books.
Sometimes one side of the guillotine may work better than the other.

If you have time weighing the books down to flatten the spines may help.

 

[bcr]

We get those little nicks too, do you mean a little tear at the bottom where its cut?

I generally just position the books so it happens on the rear of the book where possible. Happens more with larger paged books.
Sometimes one side of the guillotine may work better than the other.

If you have time weighing the books down to flatten the spines may help.

yes.

so i've done two things now:

- stopped creasing the covers before printing. I was doing this on a very basic manual creaser which I think isn't very accurate. think this might have given some of the booklets a bit of a skew when bound by the finisher.
- flatten out the books neatly before cutting.
- paying great attention that everything in the stack is as flush as possible with the backgauge. using more pressure on the jogger block and jiggling it a bit to ensure i shift all books equally.

the backgauge was a bit obscured before and I think i was being a bit dumb in not paying enough attention to it.

that seems to be giving me a nice straight cut now.

Thanks for your input!

 

[tngcas]

We print the books flat and then cut the tops and bottoms and then run them back through the printer and fold/staple them as blank sheets (our canon doesn't charge us for blank clicks - Xerox charged us as black and white copies).
Then we just have to cut the face. It's easier than three edge trimming them afterwards and we don't have the nick issue.

The only drawback to this method is if your printer doesn't fold them straight. We had that issue with the Versants constantly but haven't had it with the Canons so that's a nice change.

 

[AP90]

We print the books flat and then cut the tops and bottoms and then run them back through the printer and fold/staple them as blank sheets (our canon doesn't charge us for blank clicks - Xerox charged us as black and white copies).
Then we just have to cut the face. It's easier than three edge trimming them afterwards and we don't have the nick issue.

The only drawback to this method is if your printer doesn't fold them straight. We had that issue with the Versants constantly but haven't had it with the Canons so that's a nice change.

This is probably the easiest way of doing it. We've done it many times before and also do it with 5.5x8.5 booklets to cut our clicks in half if its a color booklet. Our Versant 3100 is really accurate on the fold and can be tweaked if needed. Plus adding the square spine to it gives it a great look and easy to face trim if we don't want to inline. Sometimes the face trimming inline gets skewed.

 

[keith1]

Having the spine facing the direction of which way the blade comes down will help eliminate nicks. In other words, if the blade travels down from the left, have the spines on the left.
With half the books facing one way & half facing the other you can generally do more books at a time but those with the spine on the far side of the blade direction will have a greater chance of nicking.

As for the face trim. I always paid more attention to having the face of the books line up perfectly (or as near as possible) vertically on the face. In other words, they won't be flush against the back stop. The back stop almost becomes unneeded. Not sure if I'm explaining this too well. You can't cut too many at a time but that's just what it is.

 

[chrisio]

We print 2 up on sra3 and trim out and then back through either the bypass tray or the impose tray to fold and staple. Face trim on either the square fold or the guillotine. We have a versant 80 and I have checked and it doesn't charge us for blank clicks.

 

[sofialucas]

thanks Pippip.

I tried this method it - seems to work quite well but then lots of the copies are getting nicks on the spine.
I've tried wrapping the stack of books in an additional sheet of card but it doesn't seem to help.

any ideas?

I also do the same way and it work for me. He has explained the process accurately.

 

[Magnus59]

In addition to all the comments so far. Before trimming the head and foot, put each stack of books into the guillotine with the spine under the clamp but clear of the blade.
Do a cut cycle with clamp pressure about 4000, the will help to flatten the books and make trimming easier and more accurate.

 

[bcr]

thanks all!
i had not thought of printing and cutting first and then feeding into the booklet maker via the post-inserter. I'm not 100% sure but i think the machine (Ricoh) may require some degree of printing per-booklet to stop you getting click-free booklets out of the machine. I'll take a look though!

Re. clamping pressure, i have a manual stack cutter, so the clamp pressure is applied by manually pushing down on a lever. I'll still try playing with clamping pressures though. thanks again.

 

[bcr]

so, as suspected, i can't do fully pre-printed booklets out of totalflow prep. it insists on having some content to print.
managed to feed pre-printed covers and pages via CWS with saddle stitch stapling, but the imposition is wrong. next step is to try out impose I guess (i don't have a license so will get a demo).

 

[chrisio]

so, as suspected, i can't do fully pre-printed booklets out of totalflow prep. it insists on having some content to print.
managed to feed pre-printed covers and pages via CWS with saddle stitch stapling, but the imposition is wrong. next step is to try out impose I guess (i don't have a license so will get a demo).

What we do, is just create a blank pdf with the number of flat pages in the booklet and send it to the queue on cws. And it just prints it. Have u tried that

 

[bcr]

What we do, is just create a blank pdf with the number of flat pages in the booklet and send it to the queue on cws. And it just prints it. Have u tried that

i'm not sure i completely follow - could you give me idiot-proof baby steps on what you're doing there?

 

[chrisio]

i'm not sure i completely follow - could you give me idiot-proof baby steps on what you're doing there?

If your booklet is a 16 page booklet that is 4 a4 pages so I create a 4page BLANK document and print it to the hold queue on the fiery. Once in the fiery I then tell it which tray my "blanks" are coming from and set the fold and staple options. - it might not be the best way or the easiest way but it works for us.

 

[bcr]

If your booklet is a 16 page booklet that is 4 a4 pages so I create a 4page BLANK document and print it to the hold queue on the fiery. Once in the fiery I then tell it which tray my "blanks" are coming from and set the fold and staple options. - it might not be the best way or the easiest way but it works for us.

yeah - i've tried that variations on that . i managed to get one booklet to print using pages out of the post-inserter trays.
but now when i try to do it some other way it's making the fiery disconnect and crash. I wonder if it's a bug or a deliberate thing from Ricoh to stop click-free booklet making.

 

[bcr]

If your booklet is a 16 page booklet that is 4 a4 pages so I create a 4page BLANK document and print it to the hold queue on the fiery. Once in the fiery I then tell it which tray my "blanks" are coming from and set the fold and staple options. - it might not be the best way or the easiest way but it works for us.

ah- think i've sussed it now.
i tell it that the media is coming from the interposer, and then only define the cover under mixed media.
before i was defining both the cover and the main media under mixed media as coming from interposer.

 

[bcr]

right, to all who suggested printing first and cutting and then feeding through the post-inserter, thank you all!!!

I've finally got it working. it's obviously a million times easier to accurately trim flat sheets than bound ones. and the end product looks much better.

This is a game changer for me!
thanks!!!

 

[tngcas]

ah- think i've sussed it now.
i tell it that the media is coming from the interposer, and then only define the cover under mixed media.
before i was defining both the cover and the main media under mixed media as coming from interposer.

Just make sure you're checking your books periodically through the run. The main downside to this method is that if the printer double-feeds or jams then every book after that can end up in the wrong order. When doing a longer run I usually walk over to the machine and randomly check a book periodically - check the middle of the books to make sure the middle page is still the right one. If the machine jams for any reason make sure you cancel the job, and reset the stack to a full set before restarting it.