Saddle stitching is a popular binding method for books, brochures, and catalogs with fewer than 100 pages. It’s also one of the most cost-effective options for small booklet printing.
To create a saddle stitched booklet, a book-binding technique is achieved by collating sheets nested inside each other and stapled through their folded crease with wire staples. Two staples are commonly used, but larger paper sizes may necessitate more along the spine.
Cover
The cover of a saddle-stitched booklet is a great way to showcase your products, services, or events. It’s a versatile design element that can be used for any marketing campaign.
A book cover should be created to catch your audience’s attention and hold their interest. Therefore, avoiding any gimmicky design techniques that could come across as tacky is essential. Instead, use a clean and straightforward design that aligns with your brand.
Using an image and fonts that will work well together is also critical to the success of your book cover design. Different fonts and pictures can convey other emotions, so choose ones that suit your message.
Once you have your images and fonts, it’s time to design the booklet. Our booklet printing experts are here to help you create a custom design that will fit your needs and budget.
Saddle stitching is a popular binding method involving staples inserted into your booklet’s spine. It’s a cost-effective booklet and catalog printing option and is famous for smaller print projects.
Pages
Saddle stitching is a prevalent and affordable binding method. This method involves folded sheets of paper stacked one inside the other and attached by staples through the folds.
A printer usually prints the booklet pages on large sheets of paper called signatures. These sheets will then be folded, trimmed, and bound into the finished booklet. This setup will ensure that the pages are in numerical order and oriented correctly.
Typically, an 8-page book will have four pages printed on each sheet, which will be folded in half and then stitched. It will form a spine of the booklet that the pages will cling to when it is opened flat.
It is where the name “saddle stitching” comes from. While folding the sheets, long wire staples are threaded through the fold and clinched between the centermost pages.
Once these staples have been inserted into the spine of the pages, they will be trimmed to their final size. It will create a final book approximately 5.5″ x 8.5″ or 8.5″ x 11″.
Creep
A saddle-stitched booklet is a book that uses signatures of folded paper sheets to create pages. These signatures are nested together, nesting inside one another until they are bound along the fold line with wire staples. It is a binding suitable for booklets or magazines with 8 to 80 pages.
Creep occurs when the trim margins of the inner signatures of a saddle stitched book are narrower than pages in outer signatures. Creep is most noticeable when a booklet has many pages or is printed on thicker paper.
To prevent creep in the inner pages of a booklet, keep the number of signatures in a booklet small (typically four) and use thin paper stock when possible. Alternatively, consider using a different type of binding, such as perfect binding.
When printing a saddle-stitched booklet, use the [Auto] setting in the Print Booklet dialog box to adjust the gutter margins of each page based on the paper thickness and several pages. Using [Auto] reduces the need for manual adjustment and ensures that gutter margins are always even.
Generally, auto creep works by moving the elements in the outer margins of each page inwards progressively toward the center of the booklet. It is a good solution for most booklets, but it does have the disadvantage that it can cause problems with borders and center spreads that have elements close to the gutter edge. In these cases, it is better to account for a creep at the design stage rather than at the pre-press stage.
Stitching
Saddle stitching is the most basic and least expensive binding method for book-style materials. It is appropriate for brochures and booklets with various page counts, including those with the same paper weight sheets inside and out (self-covers) and those with a thicker cover and thinner inside text pages (plus cover).
The collated pages are draped over a saddle-like apparatus during the stitching process and stapled together through a folded line along the book’s spine. The folded crease or spine is then trimmed to size before the booklet is bound and finished with a 3-knife trimmer that removes excess paper from the book’s top, face, and bottom.
When the nested signatures are stitched together, the centermost pages stick out beyond the front and back cover of the booklet, creating an “open front” edge called “creep.” The designer can control this creep, but often it must be factored into the design from the start.
To help ensure a clean and crisp edge when the booklet is trimmed, the bindery will use a special blade to cut along the edges of the pages. It can be done manually or by using a high-speed machine that cuts on a cutting plane.