Re: binders and printing

[Stewart Freed <Stewart_Freed -at- BABYLON -dot- MONTREAL -dot- QC -dot- CA>]

There are several alternatives to three (or four) ring binders.

1) Plastic spirals - handy for small manuals (under 200 pages). Although they
may be considered unattractive, they are quite convenient, relatively
inexpensive, and allow users to not only have their manuals lay flat, but to
actually have them folded over without damaging the spine. The disadvantage
is that they have no spine, so it is tough to put tthe product name on it.
You can get around this with fancy covers and backs, but it means planning
your manual length (size) well in advance.

2) Wire-o - a binding similar to except the binding is composed of metal wire
loops placed through punched slots. Looks much neater than spirals, but you
must choose your wire-o materials carefully. If the manual is too thick, then
the wire binding tends to loosen up, and pages will fall out.

3) Lay-flat - a relation to perfect binding, except the pages lay flat when
opened.

4) Perfect binding - the object of much scorn among this list. I don't know
why. I mean, to have a book lay flat, just break the spine. Don't forget,
your users will be getting another manual with the next release. You might
say it's a race between the time it takes for the pages to fall out of the
broken spine and the time it takes to ship the next version.

I don't like binders. They are expensive, bulky, and most users will never
replace old pages with change pages.


Stewart Freed
STC Montreal
Job Bank Manager (and freelance tech writer)