Common Book Printing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

A task of preparing a book for printing is apparently glamorous and frequently proves to be very challenging. It is very easy even for experienced authors to lose sight of details that can contribute to a large error. Knowing the mistakes that might be made during the process of book printing can save you lots of time, money and stress. Some of the common mistakes that people commit when printing their book and ways of avoiding them are outlined in this guide.

Low-Resolution Images

The most common cause of the poor quality of prints is a low resolution of the source images. Resolution depends on the density information it contains; the higher information density means the obtained picture is high resolution and clear when printed. For books, your images should be in the dpi of 300 and of size that you wish them to be when printed. What this means is that for instance if you wanted to take a picture that would fill one page of the book, then the picture or image you seek to have must be at least 300 dpi at 8.5” x 11”. Normally when taking photos from the Web some of them are limited to 72 dvi and thus are not appropriate for printing. When a low resolution image is enlarged and pulled to cover the size of a book, the image comes out blurred. The fix? Before you put the pictures into your book file, ensure that they are of the right resolution and size. If you need advice on where to get proper images or what size of images to use, consult your designer.

Bleed Issues

Print that goes over an edge of a paper is referred to as Bleed. Some books have color pages, and sketched illustrations and color background normally expand to the edges of pages and do not leave concentric white borders round them. Omission of the bleed area when it is necessary, result in unwanted white borders appearing around the pages. On the other hand wrong bleed settings are also very dangerous that they can actually chop off page info. Before you design pages, inform your printing company about any bleeding problems which they should avoid. Most bleeds are done 0.125 inches outside the trim size in all edges. Ensure your designer is aware of this one. Also, give the correct trim size to your designer, especially when setting your page sizes.

Inconsistent Formatting

It has become a common print issue that formatting of pages is not uniform. Vertical alignment defects are inclusive of different text sizes, different fonts, and unequal text alignment from the initial page to the next. Finally, images may also differ as for their location of placement and size within the chapters as well. This mostly occurs when designers create the pages physically, and not programmatically using templates. It gives an incomplete impression of the website and the awkward combination of fonts looks unprofessional. Prevent this by applying templates where all the style settings for all the pages have been already set, or by creating an outline of style indicators that dictate formatting details (for example, font or spacing). Request to check the sample pages before final print out so as to check on the inconsistencies.

Incorrect Page Count Setup

You should be careful how your book file is formatted because otherwise you will run into problems with the page numbering. For example, one can fail to consider such pages as the copyright and content page, and this clearly disrupt the numbering halfway through a book.Avoid such issues and create a mock print book file with all realistic and non-realistic pages intact before going to print. Double check with your designer to make sure your file contains the true number of physical pages in the book. There should be always a clean look at the final page numbers before approving a proof. Page creeps can also occur if the margins and the gutter setting is wrong you need to double-check with your printer regarding these specifications.

Problematic Tables and Charts

When text is to be readable, it is most important that tables, charts, graphs, and other boxed elements be confined to margins. Some of the familiar issues are charts with small fonts, columns offset, or having tables continuing on the next page. Avoid issues by giving your designer all the tables, charts, or graphs you want incorporated into the document ahead of time so they can format your document correctly. Give time in case one is to adjust maybe the font sizes or the lay out. Read subtitles and sub-settings on the print proofs with keen interest to establish regularity or irregularity of placements. Whenever you have complex data charts which your printer could not handle, let him or her know in advance.

Ignoring the Book’s Spine

Borrowed book spines rarely get much love when sorting through files. However, the spine is easily the first thing you notice about a book when it is on a shelf. A spine that is, for example, turned to the wrong way, no title at all, or a barely visible author’s name looks undesirable. To prevent spine fails, give your designer the exact Book Trim Size, and do specify the paper weight.Confirm the correct thickness and the ideal size of text for the spine. Proofread the contents of the spine before the cover is closed—incidentally fixing the wrong letters on the cover is near to impossible especially if one has to redo it and pay for a new cover.

Printing Low-Quality PDFs

Basically, it’s necessary to have high-quality PDFs to be able to print. PDF issues such as the absence of fonts, low quality images or compression can cause problems of printing. Always check PDF/X standards with the printer and have an architect design files in that way. You should also make it a practice to ask your designer to add all the fonts used and check if images are at the correct resolution prior to the generation of the PDFs. Check finished PDFs through a preflight check. Failure to detect a single PDF problem at the beginning may lead to revisiting the editing as well as designing phase in order to make proper file copies.

Rushing Prepress Stages

The difficulty is that the management of hectic schedules can lead authors to rush through prepress work. Skipping essential processes, however, always boomerangs into big printing disasters – and costs money. Prepress is the stage which is done before actual physical book making: Examples are proofreading and preparation of files to be sent for print, color verification with printers as well as giving final approval on printed proof samplesIgnoring these will result in costly mistakes that are far from remedying once printed. When doing schedules, one needs to be realistic to order to plan enough prepress time. Always include some extra padding time before your scheduled print time if you think you will need to make corrections.

Reliability in Home Print Quality

Do not use the print out from the ordinary home printer to assess the final book. Consumer printer lacks the capability to compete with book printers as far as professional binding, color matching, ink etc is concerned. Something that may look perfect on your Brother printer can come with all sorts of problems when printed on a professional press. The idea is to order one hard copy from your printer to ensure accuracy and check before signing the document. It is helpful also to order one printed book sample before making a complete ordering of books if possible.

Choosing Binding too Early On

Too often new authors decide on a book binding style much too early on that has little or nothing to do with content or even total page count. But your binding influences the budgets, the scheduling, and the functionality of books. Case-binding is most appropriate for books with more than 500 pages while saddle-stitch binding is most appropriate for books of less than 50 pages. You should consult your printer before choosing the advantages and limitations for your project. Input different binding dimensions into the computer and perform estimates on the various binding options. Your printer should double check page totals prior to finalizing so you select the cheapest and practical binding technique.

It may be possible to avoid most book printing problems if a good deal on preparation, organization, and coordination with everybody involved is done. By constructing in addition quality checks in the process, a business devises protection mechanisms to ensure delivery of quality. It is recommended to tend to problem areas outlined in this article before they ruin your pretty book. Now, you are well-equipped with the information you need to proceed to the next stage – the actual book printing.

Scroll to top