Some of our clients may never have considered the option of perfect binding but it is a relatively inexpensive alternative to traditional bindings such as coil, and adds a certain degree of professionalism to the look and feel of your book.
If you think about it, how often do you see coil, comb, or wire bound books at the library or book store? The answer would be rarely if ever. The added bulk of a coil-type binding is awkward and doesn’t offer easy identification when a book is shelved. Perfect binding allows you to have a sharp looking and more manageable product. Just the ability to stack and store your books becomes less of a headache with a slimmed down cover, and having a spine gives the ability to convey more information.

One misconception people may have about perfect binding is that it’s a long and complicated process, but that is not the case. We’ve had perfect bound proofs to clients within 24 hours of submission, and in reality it’s often quicker to perfect bind than it is to coil. CEC can have the finished perfect bound books in customers’ hands within weeks, days, even hours depending on the volume of your order.

A few things to keep in mind when making the leap to perfect binding:

• Finished dimensions. Perfect bound books will receive what is called a “face trim”, that is to say that all excess edges of the cover and pages will be cut short so if your document is set up to be letter size (8.5×11) then the finished book will be just shy of that at approximately 8.35×10.85. If the finished book needs to be exactly 8.5×11 then we can accommodate that by increasing the border width around the edges of the image. This may limit how many up we can fit on a sheet so please let your CSR know that this is what’s needed when placing your order.
• Spine width. Your spine size will be determined by the amount of pages in your book as well as the thickness of the sheets used. Obviously heavier stock results in thicker books so use the following guidelines when creating your spine.
• For a book using a 20# text weight stock multiply the number of sheets by .004
• For 60# text weight multiply the number of sheets by .0046
• If you’re unsure what size to make your spine don’t hesitate to contact us and we can get you a proper width measurement.

Also, try our Perfect Bound Spine Width Calculator on the Knowledge page. The calculator will automatically determine the spine size needed based on the number of pages in your document and some of our most frequently used stocks.
Here is a template based on CEC’s maximum printable size for a perfect bound cover with full bleeds, 8.5 x 11 with 370 pages (185 sheets) on 20# text weight stock.
Click the image below to download the full size PDF file of the template.