Commercial print · 4 min read
Book and catalogue printing: what to specify
Most book and catalogue enquiries arrive as a page count and a quantity, which is roughly half of what a printer needs to price the job. The missing half is where the cost actually lives, and supplying it turns a vague range into a real number you can compare between suppliers.
Trim size, and why it is not free
The finished page size decides how many pages fit on a press sheet, and that decides the paper bill. A size chosen because it looks right on screen can waste a third of every sheet, and you pay for the whole sheet either way.
Ask the printer which sizes run economically on their presses before fixing the dimensions. Moving a catalogue a few millimetres to fit the sheet is invisible to the reader and can be the largest single saving in the job.
Text paper: weight and whether it shows through
Text paper is specified by weight and by finish. Lighter stock costs less and makes a thinner, lighter book, which matters if it will be posted. Heavier stock feels more substantial and, more importantly, stops print on one side showing through to the other.
Show-through is the failure nobody anticipates. A heavily inked page backing onto a light one on thin stock produces a ghost that makes both harder to read. If the book is image-heavy, go heavier than feels necessary, or ask for a dummy in the proposed stock before committing.
Cover stock and finish do the selling
The cover is specified separately and almost always heavier than the text. It carries the handling, so it needs stiffness, and it carries the first impression, so it usually gets a lamination. Matte lamination reads as considered; gloss reads as commercial; a spot UV over matte gives contrast on a title or logo.
One practical warning that applies to books more than packaging: a dark matte cover shows every fingerprint and scuff. On something that will be handled repeatedly, ask for a scuff-resistant lamination and handle a sample deliberately before approving.
Colour pages are not all-or-nothing
Full colour throughout is the expensive default. Many books do not need it. Printing the text pages in one colour and confining full colour to a defined section costs considerably less, and for a technical manual or a report it is often invisible to the reader.
This has to be planned into the page layout, because colour sections fall on particular sheets rather than wherever you like. Decide it early and the saving is real; decide it late and it is not available at all.
Proof before the run, always
On packaging a shade card settles colour. On a book the equivalent is a proof, and the useful kind is a physical one on the actual stock, because colour on coated paper and colour on uncoated paper are genuinely different things regardless of what the file says.
For a long run, ask for a bound dummy as well: the right stock, the right page count, the right binding, unprinted. It tells you how the finished book feels and how thick the spine will be, which is the number the cover designer needs and the one most often guessed.
What to send with the enquiry
Seven things make a quote real: trim size, exact page count, quantity, how many pages are full colour, text and cover stock, binding, and whether you need a proof. Anything missing gets assumed, and assumptions are what make two quotes incomparable.
We print books, catalogues and company profiles from the Lahore plant alongside the carton work, with pre-press and colour correction in-house. Send those seven and we will quote at two or three quantities so you can see where the unit cost flattens.
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