Small Run Full Color Book

June 21, 2016 8:56 PM

I want to print 250 books with about 25 pages, but I want all of the inside pages in color (laserjet and copy paper quality is fine). I would love for the books to be spiral bound (so they open flat), but perfect bound would be fine. What's the cheapest way to do this?
posted by gregr to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

Best answer: I have used Docucopies and the quality has always been great, especially for the price.

It is basically the level you would expect of like an Officemax or Kinkos for a fraction of the price.
posted by magnetsphere at 9:05 PM on June 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

If you were in Oakland, I know the shop downtown I'd point you to. (Shoutout to Pro Copy and Print on Franklin, who've done lots of binding and spine-slicing for me.) Since you're not, I'd suggest looking into local non-chain copy-and-printing shops. Look at samples and see if the folks seem competent, then go for it.
posted by Lexica at 10:15 PM on June 21, 2016

Do you mean saddle-stitched instead of perfect bound, where you have sheets folded, nested and stapled as opposed to glued and wrapped with a cover? It tends to be the cheapest binding method, but your page count needs to be divisible by 4 for the layout. Otherwise as far as I know coil or wire-o binding (coil being the plastic-wrapped spiral bind, wire-o is bare metal wire that isn't spiral, but both are lay-flat) are going to be cheaper than perfect bound anyway, and perfect bound isn't ideal for a book this small.

Agree with Lexica on local shops for a job this size. Ask your friends and colleagues if they can recommend anybody, and if you can't get any recommendations, try getting estimates from a few local shops you turn up near you.
posted by girih knot at 6:01 AM on June 22, 2016