PrintNinja Blog

This article will teach you about the hardcover and casebound binding project. Casebinding, commonly referred to as hardcover binding, involves the construction of an exterior case made of cardboard wrapped with paper. Casebinding is a more complicated process compared to...

This article will teach you about the saddle-stitch binding process and how it impacts your printed project. Saddle stitching is definitely the simplest form of binding: two staples are inserted into the spine, holding all of the pages together. It’s...

The collation process starts with parent sheets being folded into signatures. Parent sheets are large pre-cut pieces of paper, typically designed to fit 4-16 pages of a project on each side or 55 poker cards. They come in many weights...

This article includes links that will teach you more about the binding process and the difference in binding styles. The pieces are all in place. The body pages are folded into a book block, and the cover page has had...

This article will teach you about folding signatures and how they are involved in the offset printing process. Once the printing is complete, the stacks of fully-printed and dried parent sheets are taken to be folded by the folding machine....

This article will explain how finish is applied to your cover paper. The printing process is almost complete. Your book block is now finally ready to be bound, but before binding can happen, the parent sheet that will become your...

This article will teach you more about the final step in the process of printing your book: the drying. The final step in the offset printing process is to dry out your bound books.  This step is not necessary for...

Most printing facilities will have a Quality Assurance department responsible for inspecting all printed parent sheets during the press run, monitoring the final product for defects, and flagging any issues early on in order to deter waste. Due to PrintNinja’s...

is everything that takes place after your pages have been printed on parent sheets – and it turns out that “everything” is quite a bit! Books are folded, cut, and bound into your final project before they are ready...

How is an offset printing press set up? PrintNinja’s custom printing includes a detailed setup to achieve the best results in creating your book, calendar, comic, or other product. For your general knowledge and convenience, each step in printing your...

What is a press check? Most offset printing presses function similarly, but the quality of the final product depends on a number of factors – perhaps most importantly, a certified team of press operators and quality control specialists. Most printing...

How is printing ink used? Now that we’ve covered paper, the other main ingredient we need for the offset printing process is ink! Most full-color offset printing uses four colors of ink (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black), applied separately via...

What are the cylinders used in the printing process and how do they work? If you look inside the four compartments of the press that hold the ink fountains, you will see something similar to the diagram at the right....

What happens in the printing process? We’ve met all of the pieces: the plates, the paper, the ink, and the cylinders. The press has been cleaned and calibrated, and the plates have been installed. Now it’s time to see a...

What is a press run, and what does it entail? Prepress is finally complete. Proofs have been approved, imposition and pagination have been done, and the printing plates have been manufactured. Now it’s time for the next step: the press...