Printing your Stuff

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JamesV

JamesV

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Like many I have a bunch of PDFs, but I wouldn't mind printing and binding some of them up. Anyone else doing that, and how? I have access to one of those office sized laser printer MFD-type machines, so I would guess that's fine for most B&W printing. I noticed saddle staplers are pretty affordable, and I'm guessing work fine for the smaller page count docs. If I wanted to get fancy, do most heavy weight papers play well for covers. If I wanted to get really fancy, and set my wallet on fire, what about a comb binder?
 
I know we have some here who have posted extensively about this but for the life of me I'm having trouble finding it.
 
JamesV said:
Like many I have a bunch of PDFs, but I wouldn't mind printing and binding some of them up. Anyone else doing that, and how? I have access to one of those office sized laser printer MFD-type machines, so I would guess that's fine for most B&W printing. I noticed saddle staplers are pretty affordable, and I'm guessing work fine for the smaller page count docs. If I wanted to get fancy, do most heavy weight papers play well for covers. If I wanted to get really fancy, and set my wallet on fire, what about a comb binder?
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I have a color laser printer and a comb binder I bought at a thrift store. It's a nice tradeoff between time and quality. I can only coil punch about 12-15 pages at a time. I'll show you my Mythras solution.PXL_20220811_200714233-01.jpeg
 
I've printed out several RPG books on a cheap B&W laser printer, and used a standard three-hole punch and ring binders. I definitely recommend getting the binders that flatten one side of the ring; they hold more, warp the pages less, and seem to be less prone to pages tearing out.

The main issue is that high-detail images drain the toner quickly. For Swords & Wizardry Complete I cut both covers and a few full-page images from the PDF and reordered a couple pages to fill the gaps but the end result was fine.
 
The private Lulu project is my favorite trick. The one catch is that you need an unlocked PDF. If it's copy-protected you can't successfully upload it to their servers (there are various ways to get around this).
 
Nick J said:
The private Lulu project is my favorite trick. The one catch is that you need an unlocked PDF. If it's copy-protected you can't successfully upload it to their servers (there are various ways to get around this).
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I've heard of people getting banned from Lulu for doing this with Steve Jackson books, though, so you need to be careful with this.
 
LikelyArrow said:
I've heard of people getting banned from Lulu for doing this with Steve Jackson books, though, so you need to be careful with this.
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Even with a private project that doesn't have a visible, public presence? Interesting if true.
 
Voros said:
I know we have some here who have posted extensively about this but for the life of me I'm having trouble finding it.
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You're probably thinking of J Jenx , who does this kind of thing.

I eventually want to start making my own soft- and later hard-cover books. I like physical books but, because I don't live in America, shipping is prohibitively expensive. All those DIY posts will come in really handy once I get around to starting.
 
When I used to do it I did it exactly like Bunch did it. Laser printer (which I bought for that purpose) and a hole punch for comb binders. Works a treat! Just use some nice laminated sheets for the cover. :smile:

Might be cheaper solutions of course. But those comb binders are pretty cool and easy to leave open, ect.
 
Rob Necronomicon said:
When I used to do it I did it exactly like Bunch did it. Laser printer (which I bought for that purpose) and a hole punch for comb binders. Works a treat! Just use some nice laminated sheets for the cover. :smile:

Might be cheaper solutions of course. But those comb binders are pretty cool and easy to leave open, ect.
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I used thick cardstock for the covers and a plastic protector sheet over that.
 
I've been at this for a while. Having a month off (after churning out book after book recently) from knocking more books out as I'm needing more storage space (read: Shelves from Ikea).

Here we can see some of the things I've printed/bound, there's a pile of others on various shelves throughout the place.

1660285336969.jpg


On the right hand side are some of the earliest efforts (these are about 14 years old or so). The leatherette bound book is nice but a heavy bulletstopper and though I have more of the leatherette (fake leather material) to use I'm a bit reluctant because it makes the books unwieldy.

There are various guides on how to make these books. I started with this one HERE and you'll see some of my posts from way back as well as one or two of the more modern stuff.

To start you'll probably need to spend some money. A duplex laser printer (prints both sides, lower running costs than an inket) is pretty much a must but I have printed some of the older stuff on an inkjet and flipped it over to print on the other sides. The problem with inkjets is the pages are soaked with ink and they swell which fattens the book up and you need thick paper or it will show through, making the book even bulkier.

Once you have your pages printed off, line them up as straight as you can, clamp them together to be nice and tight (a couple of woodworking hand clamps are ideal) and drill holes for the binding. I can't remember off the top of my head how far to drill from the page edge (the homemade press I use is upstairs at the minute) but it'll be 0.5mm to 1cm or so I would think. I sew them with dental floss. It's strong, cheap and easy to thread for my crap old eyes. Also minty fresh.

Whilst sewing I also fold over a piece of mull/bookbinding/cheese cloth. Any open weave material would probably do (some of my earliest efforts use dishcloths!) and that gets glued to the cover. I use greyboard for the cover (thick recycled cardboard) which can be bought in various thicknesses. I buy 3000 micron but am switching to 2000 micron (2 mm thick) once the thick stuff is used up. Cheaper and makes the book less of a bullet stopper.

Covers have always been an issue until I bought an A3+ printer which prints borderless. I use compatible ink which I fill up myself and it was a game changer. Instead of printing half a dozen A4 sheets on the laser printer and sticking them together to form one big sheet I print an A3+ sheet and wrap the book in that. Even then, it's not quite big enough for the thickest of bullet stoppers so I've had to attach another sheet for the thickest books.

In terms of glue, PVA is cheap but wrinkles the cover pages. Ok for attaching the mull to the greyboard but takes a while to dry. Woodworking glue is better, stronger, dries faster and though costs more is a better option. I use glue sticks to stick the paper cover to the greyboard. No bubbles. Then I spray with clear lacquer from any auto supply place (it's cheap from a shop called home bargains near me). I've learned that ultra glossy covers look nice but dry the glue out underneath so I don't go mad with it now. I used to cover with clear contact but it's fiddly stuff and despite following guides on bubble/wrinkle free application I would say it's more bother than it's worth.

If all that sounds really time consuming bear in mind it gets faster with practise. I haven't timed it yet but if I print off a cover ready to go on I could print off a pdf, bind and cover it in less than an hour. Most of that is glue drying time and the woodworking glue is what makes it possible (PVA is water based so takes a while. Woodworking glue is PVA but thicker and dries much, much faster than the cheap PVA you can buy from supermarkets).

I'm not an expert but none of my books have fallen to bits, some of them get some real hammer and the covers have been the biggest issue (until I bought that A3+ printer).

Sorry for the text wall!

All I'd say is, have a go, read the tutorials and ask any questions, me or someone else will try to help!

One more thing - I don't make 'signatures' for my books. That's a large sheet of paper folded over and put in stacks of 6 or 8 to allow the book to be opened flat. Never needed to and I'll stick to the method that works for me, each to their own!
 
I'm in the UK and use these a lot:

www.doxdirect.com

Types of Binding | Doxdirect

With so many types of binding available it can often be difficult to know which is best for a project. Our guide covers each binding type and its top applications!
www.doxdirect.com www.doxdirect.com

They have lots of different binding options to satisfy varying budgets. Great customer service, free postage in the UK (when order is > £10) and every order also receives a free chewy sweet, yum!

All the stuff I share on the "Show Something Good..." thread here that isn't a POD through drivethru' or a retail copy is from Doxdirect.
 
JamesV said:
Like many I have a bunch of PDFs, but I wouldn't mind printing and binding some of them up. Anyone else doing that, and how? I have access to one of those office sized laser printer MFD-type machines, so I would guess that's fine for most B&W printing. I noticed saddle staplers are pretty affordable, and I'm guessing work fine for the smaller page count docs. If I wanted to get fancy, do most heavy weight papers play well for covers. If I wanted to get really fancy, and set my wallet on fire, what about a comb binder?
Click to expand...

I've done this at staples occasionally. It is probably a bit pricey now but it used to be not so bad if you were intending to use the material for a long period (wouldn't recommend printing and binding for a one shot). They used to have a few binding options.

You can probably buy most PDFs for about the price it would cost to print them at places like Drivethru (with better binding and outcome most likely). So I would check what options are available first
 
question about lulu, does the book HAVE to have the barcode on the back cover?
 
I’ve done a couple things vis a vis printing PDFs. 20 years ago, I’d print the book with a laser printer and carefully put the pages back to back in plastic sheet protectors and put them in a 3 ring binder. I still have about a dozen of those, mostly minis games, I think…and some early SJG PDFs.

Nowadays, I do the private print job from LuLu thing. My group and I compiled the nations books from 7th sea first edition into two big volumes that way.

I used to have a strong preference for printed works but now I don’t.
 
LikelyArrow said:
I've printed out several RPG books on a cheap B&W laser printer, and used a standard three-hole punch and ring binders. I definitely recommend getting the binders that flatten one side of the ring; they hold more, warp the pages less, and seem to be less prone to pages tearing out.
Click to expand...

Is this the type of binder you meant?

823BF211-B618-4A27-AE0F-F07E30AA46B8.jpeg
 
I'd feel remise if I ddn't bring up these bad boys...

s-l1600.jpg

I grew up with a coil binding machine, probably from the 1970's, that I used for years. I miss it terribly.
 
LikelyArrow said:
That’s it.

Word of warning: For a while I tried keeping all the OD&D books and supplements in a 3” binder like that. I… don’t recommend doing that. Makes turning the pages into a chore.
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Do you mean avoid ‘overstuffing‘ such a binder, or that turning the pages regardless of how ‘stuffed’ it is is always a pain?
 
TristramEvans said:
I'd feel remise if I ddn't bring up these bad boys...

View attachment 49120

I grew up with a coil binding machine, probably from the 1970's, that I used for years. I miss it terribly.
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I look for one every time I'm at a thrift store. Anything about them I should try to look out for as a sign of malfunction?
 
Bunch said:
I look for one every time I'm at a thrift store. Anything about them I should try to look out for as a sign of malfunction?
Click to expand...

There are so many different designs I ee whenever I occasionally google them, that I couldnt say for sure.


I've considered many times pickig up a new one, and they seem to range in price from $50 to over a hundred, and I've no idea how much in this case cost equates to quality.
 
Korgoth said:
Do you mean avoid ‘overstuffing‘ such a binder, or that turning the pages regardless of how ‘stuffed’ it is is always a pain?
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The latter. You have to lift pages a significant distance to flip them over to the other side, and the transition from flat edge to round seems to make that even more awkward, since you can't do it in one motion like you could if it was round all the way around. (A round ring would prevent the pages from laying flat when the binder was closed, so I can't recommend it.)
 
Seems to me the easiest way around it -- unless you're wedded to having done it yourself -- is to pay the local print shop to do it. I'm happy to do the layout and design, but what I've got is a personal low-yield Canon printer with the usual fiercely expensive (even in getting generic ones online) ink cartridges. Cheaper to have Paradise Copy do it for me.

Well, that, and I'm an inveterate tinkerer who updates his binders frequently. I'd hate to go to a lot of trouble to produce quality binding for my three-ring binders, only for twenty pages worth to be revised four months from now ...
 
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