Bookbinding challenges - Folding

Am I folding?

What a question! Have I ever folded?

I have never played poker, so there's that. I do help my better half fold sheets, so there's that. I don't think I have ever given up though. I admit I came close once or twice. But this, thank the powers that be, whoever they may be, is not about giving up.

For those who don't know, bookbinding involves a lot of folding!

The printer I am using offered not only to print the 24 signatures, but possibly to fold the signatures as well. To be honest I am a little conflicted. I want this ultimate version of the book to be as close to perfect as possible, and getting a nice almost perfect series of folds would be a step in the right direction. I also wanted to be 100% behind every step. Hence the conflict in my mind.

As I pondered, I decided.

I will not fold... well... what I mean is, I am persisting, not giving up... I will do the folding and you are joining me on this journey of twenty-four folds. All you need to do is read on.

The key to this journey is first to get your hands on the first signature. In this case it will be four sheets of letter-size paper (8 1/2" X 11").

As mentioned in the post on imposition, the page sequence is critically important. The first signature of the final version of my book looks like this in Excel:

The thick horizontal line represents the sheet of paper. The information above the thick horizontal line is what is printed on the top of the sheet of paper, and the information below the thick horizontal line is what is printed on the reverse of the sheet of paper. The numbers are simply the page numbers.

Make sure that the sheets are in the exact sequence shown above in the Excel plan. Carefully and gently fold the 4 sheets together and inward but without creating a crease. Then take a look at what sequence the pages will be in when you proceed to the final fold that will have the crease. If the sheets are in the correct sequence, with their tops up and facing you, you will see that the booklet is correct.

Now to complete the fold, bring the edges of the sheets together and make sure that they are perfectly aligned. I plan to use a square ruler to guide the pages. Once you feel that the alignment is as good as can be, run an index finger down the middle of the sheets to create the beginning of the crease. Once the crease begins, run your finger to the left and right to complete the crease.

Now use your bone folder to press down on the crease to make it as sharp as possible.

You will notice that the page edges are not perfectly aligned. Close maybe, but not perfect.

The good news is that while it is important to aim for perfection, there are later steps in the book binding process that allow perfect edges to emerge (see the post entitled Bookbinding challenges - Ploughing and sewing), and even shine (that is not a joke, I will show you shining page edges as part of the gilding process).

That's it for now. The next step in the process of building the book, once all the signatures are folded, is to pierce holes in the signatures and sew them all together. Lucky for you I already published a post on that, so if you don't already have a migraine you can continue the journey here: Bookbinding challenges - Building a piercing cradle.

There will be no more talk of folding in the face of challenges.

Bookbinding challenges - Imposition

I have no intention of imposing anything on you, truly I don't. To see this post on the site, go to https://life2wheels.com.

If any challenge in the process of creating a really nice leather-bound book can be said to be imposing on the binder, imposition is likely to win the prize.

As I have mentioned in earlier bookbinding posts, the pages of every hard cover book are arranged in what Canadian binders often call signatures. Signatures are groups of four to perhaps seven sheets of paper, more properly called sections, and in ancient times, going back to the medieval era, were called quires, or later gatherings. "Gatherings". I rather prefer that, it sounds calm, kind, respectful, and quite appealing, at least to me, not something that should ever be imposed.

Most often, these gatherings have four sheets of paper. For the book I am binding, all the signatures in the final and hopefully best version will have four sheets of letter-sized 8 1/2" by 11" paper. Version two of the book had one five sheet signature that I placed in the centre. I did that to minimize blank sheets in the first and last signatures. That turned out to be one of my many mistakes, not to be repeated.

It starts out simple, but as you will see a little further along, in no time I had to resort to Excel to solve the puzzle.

The signature is formed by folding the four sheets of paper in half to form a booklet that is 8 1/2" tall and 5 1/2" wide. The result is that the booklet has sixteen pages. Each page is a quarter of each sheet, because two pages are printed on each side of a sheet of paper (4 X 4 = 16).

If you fold four sheets to make a booklet, then number the pages in large numbers in the middle of each page, the last page of the booklet will be 16. Now, separate the sheets and unfold them; examine the position and sequence of the page numbers on each sheet. You will be struck by how odd the sequence of pages is on the sheets.

Arranging all the pages of a book and printing them on both sides of sheets of paper in that precise sequence is what imposition is. It took my brain a while to wrap itself around the process.

If your bookbinding project involves pages without content, such as a lined journal, or sketch book, imposition is not really an issue. It's only necessary where there is actual content, such as a novel, or poems in a desired sequence. If your pages are numbered, that fact alone, as trivial as it seems, requires imposition in order to get the page sequence right.

Here is the good news, if you follow the following recommendations, imposition is actually a snap. Think of it as four pretty simple steps to success!

Step One

Take four sheets of the paper you are going to use, and fold them in half. Now what you have is the first signature and as mentioned earlier it has 16 pages. Grab a pencil or a pen, and get ready to number the pages. Let's assume you are binding a novel. Don't start with page one of the novel on the first page of the first signature. Here is a good sequence:

1. Blank page
2. Blank page
3. Copyright information
4. Blank page
5. Title page
6. Blank page
7. Page 1 of the novel
8. Page 2
9. Page 3
10. Page 4
11. Page 5
12. Page 6
13. Page 7
14. Page 8
15. Page 9
16. Page 10

I found out the hard way (experience is what you get when you are expecting something else) that those two first blank pages are important. They become very important when you add the heavy end pages in preparation for attaching the cover to the book. The end pages are typically coloured, sometimes marbled. Those end pages aren't part of the first and last signatures, they are glued to the first and last pages of the first and last signatures with a thin band of glue. That makes for a stiff relationship that makes turning the first page of the book block awkward. If the first and last pages are blank, it's of no consequence. So make sure the first and last pages of your book are blank.

Step Two

Once you're done with the first fake signature, fold another four pages and number the next sixteen pages. The second signature will start at page 11 (since page 10 was the last page of the first signature) and the last page of the second signature will be 26.

You now have that second signature of 16 pages. It turns out that all the remaining signatures (except the last one) will have exactly the same sequence of pages, and each page in the sequence of every signature will be exactly 16 pages ahead of the equivalent page in the previous signature. So the page in the third signature that is in the same sequence in the signature as page number 15 in the second signature, will be page 31 (15 + 16 = 31). That obviously lends itself to a simple  Excel formula (= A1+16).

Step Three

So now you see the vital role that Excel plays in solving the imposition for your novel. It's as simple as this:

OK, just kidding. But actually it is simple, and it helps to see it in more detail.

Each numbered vertical bar represents a signature. Each sheet of paper is represented by a horizontal line. The numbers or other information above each horizontal line are pages on the front of the sheet, and the numbers or other information below each horizontal line are pages to print on the back or reverse of each sheet. All the page numbers in signatures 3, 4 and beyond are Excel formulas. For instance, the cell in the spreadsheet that shows page 28 in the third signature contains the following formula: =F92+16.

Step Four

This is the easiest thing of all. Copy the Excel cells that make up the fourth signature and simply paste them over and over again until you have all the pages you need for your novel. In the last signature, replace the formulas for the extra pages that won't have any content with "BLANK".

And there you have it, that's all that you need to know about one of the most challenging aspects of crafting your very own novel, book of poetry, or, in my case, 365 pages of love notes to my better half: the imposition.

Where do things stand now in my amazing project?

I am glad you asked.

Test version two of my book is finished.

It may look pretty good, but it has many flaws. The spine is too wide; the book is misaligned in the cover; the content is all black and white printed on cheap recycled printer paper; The pages where there were typos are marked up with corrections; the sewn binding could stand improvement; the end pages are just construction paper, not good enough; there aren't enough blank pages in the first and last signatures; the cover art needs to be mounted better, the final version will not have any gaps; the spine hubs are too thick...

The good news is that the pages are all in the correct sequence thanks to proper imposition, and there are some pages without flaws.

These days I am working on the final version. I am hoping that what I have learned in the first two trials will yield a nearly perfect gift for my darling. Today I hope to finish 5 or 6 fresh signatures in PDF format. I have already gotten to the 8th signature. I am so close to having 24 signatures ready to take to the printer.

Ed.: This afternoon, July 23, 2025, I walked the thumb drives with all 24 V3 signatures to The Printing House and discussed the printing with Corey Corbett the manager. We think that the print may be complete by the end of next week. It's tricky because usually the printer manages the imposition but in this case, as we have seen, the files I dropped off have the imposition done. We'll have a chat early next week to make sure everything makes sense. I can't wait to see the colour version on nice 80 lb paper. They call it "silk".

Bookbinding challenges - Taking stock of the first test

What you are seeing here from left to right are...

a) a book cover theory laid out on paper;

b) the first complete test of 10 or eleven test signatures, folded, sewn, glued, and trimmed, with a first complete test leather cover, and with the book block cased into the cover; and

c) the complete test book block of 23 signatures with all the book's pages in the correct order, each signature folded, all signatures sewn, and a first coat of glue applied to the binding.

It's far from perfect, and it's even far from good.

What you can't really see is how much I have learned up to this point.

There are things I already knew before the first test, like how important precise measurements are, the importance of having the right materials, and the key role that skills play in achieving something that meets the objective of producing a really nice and valued leather-bound book.

Here is what I have learned so far, thanks to the first complete test, in no particular order:

•  The idea of having the book title printed on book cloth in a window on the front cover works nicely. The problem that you can see is that the front cover window is a sandwich of two cover boards and a sheet of book cloth. It's way too thick. Like twice too thick. I think I can reduce it to a single thickness, but that is going to require a separate test.
• I suspected the test leather was too thick. It's just random leather from scraps I got at the local crafts shop. The leather I need to find is a nice red leather to match the ultimate design. I'll see if that will be available in a thinner lighter weight. If not, I think this thickness of leather will actually work. We'll see in the second test when the complete book is bound. 
• The end papers I used are just plain sheets of paper. I am kind of shocked at how well they did their job. What I learned is the role they play can't really be understood until you actually use them to secure the cover. It's the most important role that paper ends up playing in a properly bound leather covered book. To play that role properly, the paper needs to be thicker and stronger than the paper used to print the book. Ideally what may be best is a Japanese paper with a heart motif, in red. We'll see if that even exists.