RE: DOCBOOK: Print books in book format

[Stephan Wiesner <stephan@stephan-wiesner.de>]

Hi Lee,
Can you make any suggestions as to the needed machinery? We don't need
to much automation, say 2-3 books a day will be sufficient. We have very
good laser printers at our university and could print the pages and the
cover there.
The finished product should be a real book and all I managed to find was
a real doitallmachine for EUR 150.000 and above or small '~hot melter'
machines with plastic covers that can not be printed on.

We are negotiating with local publishers at the moment, but don't seem
to make to good a deal. It is just to expensive to print a single copy
of a book there and drive over and fetch it, then two days later print
another two copies.

Stephan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lee Moore [mailto:moore@wrc.xerox.com] 
> Sent: Montag, 18. November 2002 19:19
> To: Uten Navn
> Cc: docbook@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: DOCBOOK: Print books in book format
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I work in the area of digital book printing and so I might be 
> able to help you.
> 
> In our experience, the process of creating a physical book 
> (such as you would find in a bookstore) is best designed by 
> looking at the steps in reverse order of execution. That is 
> to say, start with the finished book and work backwards 
> toward the raw materials. This is a "pull" model rather than 
> a "push" model.  We find that the later steps place 
> constraints on the earlier steps so designing the work 
> process in the reverse direction of the data flow allows you 
> to capture these dependencies.
> 
> If I assume that you want a paperback book ("perfect bound"), 
> then the 
> last two steps are:
> 
> 1) do a perfect binding of the book body ("block") to the 
> wrap-around cover.
> 
> 2) trim the result of above to make the cover and body flush 
> with each other.
> 
> What steps come before are highly dependent on your binding 
> process. For example, "signatures" may or may not be necessary.
> 
> I suggest that you interview printers/binderies and
> ask them what formats they accept. If you want a wrap-around 
> cover, I would think about how you are going to do that. You 
> could use a drawing tool (Adobe Illustrator, etc.). I don't 
> think there is a DocBook style sheet to do this.
> 
> best of luck to you on your adventure,
> 
> Lee Moore
> Xerox Corp.
> Rochester, NY USA
> 
> 
> 
> >>>Uten Navn said:
>  > Hi,
>  > 
>  > Does any one of you docbook writers know how a docbook (or 
> other document) 
>  > can be printed (on your personal printer) in a traditional 
> book fashion?  > 
>  > I'm looking for a solution where I get the printout 
> formatted such that the 
>  > pages can be wrapped up like a ordenary book.
>  > 
>  > Ex: Print two pages on each side (A4 in my case) of the 
> paper. When the 
>  > pages are printed I could use a stapler, old fashone 
> thread or something to 
>  > bind the pages.
>  > 
>  > Any pointers, links or sugestions would be appreciated.
>  > 
>  > Best Regards
>  > Staale Flock
>  > 
> 
> 
>