How much does it (really) cost to print & bind a single book at home?

[Martin C.]

How much does it cost to print & bind a PDF into a book?

In a related post to the electronic newsgroups, I found a bunch of
'ebooks' which are basically PDFs which can be printed, for free.

What's the trick to printing & binding them at home?
What is the cost normally associated by page for paper, ink, binding, and
equipment maintenance?

Here, by the way, are some of the desired documents:

* Op Amps For Everyone, Ron Mancini, 464 pages:
* www.ti.com/lit/an/slod006b/slod006b.pdf

* Designing Analog Chips, Hans Camenzind, 250 pages,
* www.designinganalogchips.com/_count/designinganalogchips.pdf

* Circuits I Have Known, Ronald Parker, 190 pages
* controlsignalconverter.com/docs/circuits_i_have_known.pdf

* A DESIGNER’S GUIDE TO INSTRUMENTATION AMPLIFIERS, Charles Kitchin, 130
pages
* www.analog.com/static/imported-files/
design_handbooks/5812756674312778737Complete_In_Amp.pdf

* HANDBOOK OF OPERATIONAL AMPLIFIER APPLICATIONS, Bruce Carter, 94 pages
* www.ti.com/lit/an/sboa092a/sboa092a.pdf

* CMOS Transistor Layout KungFu, by Lee Eng Han, et al, 40 pages
* www.eda-utilities.com/CMOS_Transistor_Layout_KungFu.pdf

etc.

What are the typical costs for printing & binding at home?

a) Paper is about 4 cents a sheet
b) B&W laser powder is (how much) a sheet?
c) Binding is (how much) a book?
d) etc.

[Martin C.]

On Fri, 30 Mar 2012 07:08:32 -0400, Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

> You're like a two year old sitting in the middle of the room crying for
> a cookie.

:)

All I wanted was experienced estimates on printing costs.
From a printing group.
The world's best printing group on the net, in fact.

Here's my set of assumptions to compare the cost of printing.
A 100-page book costs about $3.50 to print & bind at home.
A 250-page book costs about $5.75.
A 500-page book costs about $9.50.
A 1,000-page book costs about $17.00 to print & bind at home.

Maybe if they're off (or on), someone who actually knows what he's doing
can let me know if my guess is way off base or not.

1. Paper is easy to estimate the cost per page.
Costco sells 8.5x11 92-bright 20# paper at about $40/5000 sheets, which
is 0.8 cents per sheet, which is about 0.4 cents per page. Let's assume a
half cent per page is a reasonable number (with wastage).

2. Toner is a bit harder to estimate cost per page.
I first need to estimate how many pages an HP laserjet 3200m cartridge
prints and then what the cost is for that cartridge.
Googling, I see "page yields" of about 2,500 and costs of less than $20
for refill kits (http://www.247inktoner.com/hp-laserjet-3200-toner-
cartridges).
But, books are heavy duty printing. So, I'll assume (for lack of real
data), about 2000 pages per $20 of toner, which is an estimate of one
cent per page.

So, the actual printing is about 1.5 cents per page.
But, you have to take wear and tear into effect; so I'll round that to a
true cost of 2 cents per page.

That makes the average 500-page book cost about $10 to print at home.
Is this a fair estimate to ask of the primary printing group on the net?

3. Binding is much harder to estimate the costs of.
I have no experience with book binding; so my googling is almost
certainly off base by more than too much. Still, without help, I move on.
(Admittedly, this is the world's best printing group - not a binding
group ... so I may be unfairly asking too much of you.)

Googling, I find there are many binding methods:
http://www.abcoffice.com/binding_guide.htm

So, choosing 1-inch thermal binding as the gold standard, I find a "T-30
Thermal Binding Machine" for about $90, so I'll assume that's a NRE of
about $100 (free shipping but adding tax).

The problem now is estimating the cost per book. If I assume I make, oh,
say 100 books in the lifetime of the machine, that makes each book an
additional dollar to amortize the cost of the binding machine.

I have no idea what binding materials cost.
Fifty 1x11 inch "thermal glue strips" seem to be about $50 (http://
www.mybinding.com/.sc/ms/dd/ee/529/Thermal-Binding-Glue-Strips-Create-
Your-Own-Covers)

So the glue alone adds another dollar to the cost of the book (I suspect
there are cheaper home-depot-like construction-material alternatives to
the glue strips - but asking that might admittedly be too much for the
printing group so I'll look over to alt.home.repair for the needed advice
as they are one of the best groups on the net for real-world information).

I'm not sure how to do the covers. I'm inclined to print a color first
page and then put clear plastic for the binding. I was unable to get a
cost for that, so, out of the air, I'll assume fifty cents per cover as
I'm not sure what materials will work for binding.

(Too bad there wasn't a book printing & binding group.) :(

Overall, that comes to the following estimates for printing a book:
Paper ~= 0.5 cents per printed page
Toner ~= 1 cent per printed page
Binding ~= $2 per bound book

So, a 100-page book costs about $3.50 to print & bind at home.
A 250-page book costs about $5.75.
A 500-page book costs about $9.50.
A 1,000-page book costs about $17.00 to print & bind at home.

Within a buck or three ... do these estimates seem like those that
professional printers would have come up with?

(e.g., I have no idea of professional printing prices that you might have
in your head.)

[Martin C.]

On Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:20:06 +0000, Martin C. wrote:
> All I wanted was experienced estimates on printing costs.

> From ... the world's best printing group on the net, in fact.

I realize binding isn't printing ... so I called Fedex Kinkos who tells
me they no longer do laminated binding.

They only supply "Zelo" binding (flat coils) for $3.50 per book (+ $1 if
it's thicker than one inch which they say is 200 sheets of paper).

The problem they say with Zelo is that it's not as friction free as a
book would need. So they recommended spiral coil binding, at $5.50 per
book (plus $1 if it's greater than one inch which is about 400 printed
pages).

Incidentally, they charge 11 cents per printed page, so, having 'them'
print would be an order of magnitude more expensive than printing at home.

I'll keep looking up how to get printing & binding costs down for a home-
printed book.

If you, on the printing group, have constructive ideas, I'd welcome them.

[Martin C.]

On Sat, 31 Mar 2012 08:10:56 +0100, Charlie+ wrote:
> How many books are you talking about?

I've got more than a dozen so far, all culled from the net.

The printing itself doesn't seem to be onerous at about a half cent for
the paper plus one cent for the toner for a result of about 1.5 cents per
printed page.

> Self binding you could probably manage for one or two books

The binding seems to be where I need an elegant solution suggested from
someone who has thought about it already.

The books themselves don't have to look professional; they just need to
be bound so that they can be read like a book.

> anything in colour would be a major increase in cost.

I think the only color printing would be the first page (under the clear
binding). Most of the ebooks I found are B&W to start with.

If anyone has ideas that will improve the suggested process, that would
be appreciated.

[Martin C.]

On Sat, 31 Mar 2012 14:03:37 +0000, Martin C. wrote:
> If anyone has ideas that will improve the suggested process,
> that would be appreciated.

UPDATE:

alt.home.repair, as usual, came through with lots of great ideas.

Now, the printing & binding is down to the price of paper & toner plus
the cost of cheesecloth or string & rubbery adhesives commonly available
by the gallon at Home Depot.

These ideas bring the cost down to roughly about $5 per 500-page book!
Printing & binding should take about an hour (glue sets overnight).

Thanks everyone!

[Michael J Davis]

Martin C. <martinc...@nospam-gmail.com> was inspired to say

>On Sat, 31 Mar 2012 08:10:56 +0100, Charlie+ wrote:
>> How many books are you talking about?
>
>I've got more than a dozen so far, all culled from the net.
>
>The printing itself doesn't seem to be onerous at about a half cent for
>the paper plus one cent for the toner for a result of about 1.5 cents per
>printed page.
>
>> Self binding you could probably manage for one or two books
>
>The binding seems to be where I need an elegant solution suggested from
>someone who has thought about it already.
>
>The books themselves don't have to look professional; they just need to
>be bound so that they can be read like a book.

So I assume you don't want 'perfect binding' - each sheet stuck into an
adhesive layer on the spine?

I used to do reports, up to 120 pages, like that - A4 (since I'm in the
UK) sized using cheap transparent front and coloured back ready made
covers, and a simple timed heater to melt the hot-melt adhesive.

If you doing a lot, a friend (also a consultant) used to bind his
reports - up to 500 pages each in a steel clamp spine, but that required
a tough lever device to cramp the steel to grip all the pages, that was
quite expensive.

>
>I think the only color printing would be the first page (under the clear
>binding). Most of the ebooks I found are B&W to start with.
>
>If anyone has ideas that will improve the suggested process, that would
>be appreciated.

Mike

--
Michael J Davis
<><

[Richard Steinfeld]

It may be useful if you tell us what your goal is.
For example, do you want to download books by others about
electronic chips and print single copies for your own reference?
Do you want to self-publish books to sell to others?

Having looked into this, and have lived for a number of years on
this planet, I'll say that glue-binding is a pain: these bindings
often fall apart. I like a professional method that's been called
"Velo-binding." It may have another name after the company was
acquired; there's at least one alternative source for the materials.

The process uses a slim hard-plastic strip on each side of the
document. One strip contains protruding studs. The other strip
has mating holes for the studs. The machine seals the two plastic
parts to the document with pressure and heat: the studs are fused
to the other strip. It works nicely. I have it done at a copy
shop (I'm in the USA).

I use "old" HP inkjet printers that I bought cheaply at a thrift
shop. I have duplex accessories for them, which cuts the paper
cost and shelf space in half. You need paper with halfway-decent
opacity.

Richard


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[Martin C.]

On Sun, 01 Apr 2012 10:05:08 -0700, Richard Steinfeld wrote:

> do you want to download books by others about electronic chips
> and print single copies for your own reference?

Yes.

I want to learn how to do analog IC simulation & layout using tools
freely available on the net.

The problem I'm seeing is that I like paper, and, these books are so
technical that I need to read them slowly, write in the margins, do a
calculation - perhaps a drawing or diagram - and then read them again. I
just can't do that with an ebook. Plus my little tiny laptop is small so
it's a royal pain to simple fit a page (too small) or fit wide (too much
scrolling).

I've downloaded all the books I need to understand theory (sometimes it
takes more than one explanation for me to get the point since this is all
about IC design and not about raising kids or something simple like
that) ... :)

The problem now is simply making them a paper reference for me to use
once or thrice while learning - and to refer to in the future, as needed.

> Do you want to self-publish books to sell to others?

Nope. These aren't 'my' books. I don't know anything about CMOS analog IC
design anyway. I simply want them for my own reference.

> You need paper with halfway-decent opacity.

I found out from one of the printing ebooks (Digital Desktop Publishing,
by Susan E. L. Laketitled" in the "planning your document" section that
the pound weight & bleed measurement & color description system is
absolutely whacky!

For example, something like 20# paper is equivalent to 56# paper (or
something like that) depending on the size of the paper itself. Plus the
colors of white are also whacky. The author of that ebook on desktop
publishing suggests, for example, to go to a printer to figure it all out.

It was so complicated, it made analog IC design look positively easy!
:)

[Martin C.]

On Sun, 01 Apr 2012 11:32:28 +0100, Michael J Davis wrote:

> So I assume you don't want 'perfect binding' - each sheet stuck into an
> adhesive layer on the spine?

Actually, that's what I prefer. It seems so neat & tidy. And, I've found
that the glue (gorilla glue or shoe goop) is inexpensive.

I think all I really need (now that I've worked on it and you guys gave
me great ideas) is:
1. Glue (gorilla glue or shoe goop)
2. Clamps (almost any kind seem to work)
3. Jig (a wood frame seems pretty standard in the "book press" searches)

Basically, I think I print four pages to a side of paper using software
like Windows 'Fineprint' or Linux 'fp/fprint'book to perform the digital
imposition.

The digital imposition can be booklet imposition; but that requires me to
have multiple 'folios', which is more professional, but much more effort.

So I think I'll opt for book imposition instead. That's where the first
sheet of paper contains the first page and the median page on the one
side, and on the other side it contains the second page plus the
postmedian page. When the 8.5x11 US "letter" size stack is cut in half
(Fedex will do a 1/2 inch thick cut for $1.50), I simply put the two
decks together and bind the edges.

Someone suggested using a belt sander to even up the outside edges when
done, which sounds like a good idea for the thicker books.

So far, the cost, at four book pages to a sheet of paper, seems to be
reasonable (about a half cent for the paper plus one cent for the toner
for a result of about 1.5 cents per printed page); and a 'perfect
binding' at home can be done for about the cost of Gorilla Glue or Shoe
Goop and a few clamps and pieces of wood.

[Richard Steinfeld]

On 4/2/2012 7:14 PM, Martin C. wrote:
> On Sun, 01 Apr 2012 10:05:08 -0700, Richard Steinfeld wrote:
>
>> do you want to download books by others about electronic chips
>> and print single copies for your own reference?
>
> Yes.
>

> I want to learn how to do analog IC simulation& layout using tools

> freely available on the net.
>
> The problem I'm seeing is that I like paper, and, these books are so
> technical that I need to read them slowly, write in the margins, do a
> calculation - perhaps a drawing or diagram - and then read them again. I
> just can't do that with an ebook. Plus my little tiny laptop is small so
> it's a royal pain to simple fit a page (too small) or fit wide (too much
> scrolling).

................

> The problem now is simply making them a paper reference for me to use
> once or thrice while learning - and to refer to in the future, as needed.
>

I have the same issues. I need to print quite often so that I can
peruse and think. Reading at length on-screen is irritating, and
I think, unhealthy because of sitting rigidly. There's something
about the screen that makes people impatient, and I believe that
this is the reason why the prevalence of typos has increased.

I have a lot of old 20-weight tractor paper left from computer
days of yore. So, I've been ripping off the edge strips, breaking
apart the sheets, and using them normally in the inkjet printer
for "throw-away" print jobs, even printed on both sides of the
pages using the duplexer. Yes: it's surprisingly good enough.

It's easy to refill the HP black cartridges. The color has been a
real pain, partially due to a "bait and switch" ink company
that's been buying up a lot of the competition, and mis-stating
both the name of the business as well as selling "American" ink
that's from China. Their color ink wrecked my cartridges. But
I've refilled with good Korean ink, too (InkTec and their "off
brand," which I've forgotten.

So, yeah: I can see the value of printing out reference books
that don't need stunning print quality. I keep good quality paper
on hand too, but I'm finding that junky paper is perfectly fine
for many purposes.

The business about paper weight numbers is simply the difference
about how the weights are stated fpr general office paper (one
system) and in the book printing industry (the other system). The
numbers are different enough so that I don't get them mixed up.

Richard

[Richard Steinfeld]

We can save a lot of money by making our own paper. First, you
buy a 25 pound bag of rice...

[Elmo P. Shagnasty]

In article <jldmel$rp2$5...@speranza.aioe.org>,

"Martin C." <martinc...@nospam-gmail.com> wrote:

> > do you want to download books by others about electronic chips
> > and print single copies for your own reference?
>
> Yes.
>
> I want to learn how to do analog IC simulation & layout using tools
> freely available on the net.
>
> The problem I'm seeing is that I like paper,

no, the problem is that you won't just go out and buy the damn books.

Face it: you don't REALLY want to learn all of this, you simply want to
futz and fiddle and fart around with complaining about how hard it is
for you to make a book at home.

[Martin C.]

On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 00:36:47 -0700, Richard Steinfeld wrote:

> The business about paper weight numbers is simply the difference about
> how the weights are stated fpr general office paper (one system) and in
> the book printing industry (the other system). The numbers are different
> enough so that I don't get them mixed up.

I see your point. In some cases, a 20# paper is essentially similar to
something like 56# ... so you have to know what's what to compare.

[Martin C.]

On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:02:46 +0100, Charlie+ wrote:

> Dont you need a small saw to make shallow slots
> in the stack before glueing?

The saw and the belt sander both seem like great suggestions!

[Martin C.]

On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 00:39:45 -0700, Richard Steinfeld wrote:

> We can save a lot of money by making our own paper. First, you buy a 25
> pound bag of rice...

I wonder if that's actually true.

With paper costing only about 0.8 cents a sheet, could you possibly make
the paper for less than what you can buy it?

We've proven you can certainly print & bind a book for less than it costs
to buy it.

But, I don't know about starting from rice. Do you know how much rice it
takes to make, say, 100 sheets of paper?

[Andrew Smallshaw]

On 2012-03-30, Martin C. <martinc...@nospam-gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 3. Binding is much harder to estimate the costs of.
> I have no experience with book binding; so my googling is almost
> certainly off base by more than too much. Still, without help, I move on.
> (Admittedly, this is the world's best printing group - not a binding
> group ... so I may be unfairly asking too much of you.)

I'm a bit late into this discussion I know, but my advice would be
to check with your local universities and colleges: they pretty
much all have reasonably comprehensive in-house print shops and
they're usually open to the public. Prices tend to be keener than
the high street.

I know my local university library here in the UK offers while-you-wait
spiral binding for £2 including plastic covers, irrespective of
the number of pages. I believe they offer other binding options
but I've never looked into them, preferring the robustness and
lie-flat-open property of spiral binding.

I do have a plastic comb-binding machine at home that I use for
urgent binding of shorter stuff, but if it's not urgent (or exceeds
what a plastic comb can handle) I'll take it there: it saves so
much messing around, partly because their punches can do perhaps
70-80 sheets at a time which is a lot quicker than the four or five
of a home machine.

As for cost a few months ago I printed and bound the entire POSIX
specification (all 3,800 pages). ISTR I worked out the all-in cost
at just over £30 which is an order of magnitude cheaper than a
print copy. That was based on toner at 0.3p/page, paper at half
a penny a sheet and binding into five or six volumes. You do need
to consider the costs on a case-by-case basis though: cheaper books
are cheaper simply to buy in printed form. Anything under £10 here
generally isn't worth it; anything over £20 usually is.

--
Andrew Smallshaw
and...@sdf.lonestar.org