Binding a book or cutting a leaflet are just two of the many jobs handled by a printers’ finishing department.

Finishing and Binding

Finishing is a broad area which covers anything which is done to a job after it has been printed. Finishing might involve laminating, trimming edges or coating the print surface. Finishing is the process which gives the printed work functionality in the real world - such as mounting a poster into a backlit display, heat transferring an image to a T-shirt, or binding a set of A3 spreads together into an A4 booklet.

Lamination and encapsulation

A laminate is a thin sheet of transparent plastic which is bonded to one or both sides of the printed paper. It protects the paper from handling and moisture. Lamination is frequently used on the outer covers of company brochures and reports etc.

Encapsulation is similar to lamination but the transparent sheet is thicker and allows much greater protection. A range of different thicknesses can be chosen from, and the encapsulate extends beyond the border of the artwork by 5-10mm. The transparent border seals the artwork inside keeping it completely waterproof. Encapsulation is used for artwork which might be subjected to rainy weather conditions, such as driver's licences or outdoor poster boards.

Trimming

Trimming simply is the job of cutting a document down to its intended dimensions. Printing presses cannot print to the very edge of a sheet of paper, so artwork is usually printed on larger sheets of paper. After printing a guillotine is used to trim off the excess white borders. Graphic designers set 'bleed' in their artwork to allow for any minimal movement in the printing and cutting process.

Bleed is a commonly used technique in print design. If a background image or colour extends right to the page edge, a designer will extend the element beyond the page boundary. The extension (usually 3mm) beyond the border is called 'bleed.' During printing, paper sheets do not feed into the press in exactly the same position every time. The variation is usually only fractions of a millimetre, but it becomes significant during the finishing stage. It is similarly impossible for a guillotine to cut right down the edge of a design perfectly every time, due to the same margin of feed error. If a page did not have bleed and the guillotine blade cut a fraction outside the page border, a hairline white line would be visible instead of the image carrying all the way to the page edge. Bleeding background elements like colours and pictures beyond the trim border corrects this problem. Crop marks printed outside the artwork area help the cutter by displaying where the page ends and the bleed begins.

Die Cutting

Much like trimming is cutting the printed piece to its finished size. You can die cut your job to nearly any shape from a simple circle to a more intricate design such as a butterfly.

Another use is die cutting with lugs in, this allows you to have your shape within a bigger sheet and push out at a later date – often used with offer cards in leaflets.

Perforating

Is a series of dots designed to allow you to tear part of your finished item with ease. There are a variety of perforations depending on the application.

Folding and creasing

Printed documents can be folded in a number of different ways. The most common folds are shown below. Paper of over 170gsm needs to be creased to prevent it from 'cracking' (tearing). This involves scoring the paper before it is folded.

UV Varnish

Is a finish applied over the printed piece or a lamination. UV varnish can either be of gloss or matt finish and unlike a laminate can be applied to a specific area of the print, egg. over a logo in the same shape.

Binding

Is a series of dots designed to allow you to tear part of your finished item with ease. There are a variety of perforations depending on the application.

Binding is the method used to gather and finish jobs of multiple pages. These range from stitching to wiro-binding. Download types of binding here.