Perfect Bound Book Gutter

The gutter goes on the left side of right hand pages and on the right side of left hand pages.

Perfect bound book gutter.

These two products have binding types that are clamped and held together with glue. Anything placed in the area between the two pages also known as the gutter may get lost in the binding of the book. Other forms of binding such as saddle stitch booklet printing wire o booklet printing and spiral binding do not require any gutter. Depending on the size of the book the gutter can be anywhere from 1 4 1 2.

The amount lost will vary depending on the number of pages where the pages are in the book beginning middle or end the paper thickness and slight. These products lay flat and no content is lost in the. Gutter width can take up 1 4 to 1 2 from the page. When designing inside pages for perfect bound books the extra area that the spine takes up also known as the gutter must be accounted for.

An example of a perfect bound book gutter can be seen below. If you are setting up a book which will be perfect bound remember the spine gutter margins should be at least 7mm wider than the foredge margins to compensate for them being nipped together during the binding process. Layflat books use a single sheet of paper for each two page spread so there s no gutter loss and no potential for misaligned spreads just a scored line down the center of the spread. So yes you have a half inch margin on the left and the right to have white space to keep your book easy to read.

This process will cause a curve of the pages coming from the spine when the book is open. This will help to overcome the impression of your text and images falling into the spine and will also help to make them more visually centred. But in addition to that margin you also want a gutter.