Supply pages as single pages together in one document. If you can size to intended print size or just send what you have and we will resize. Ideally as a PDF but doesn't matter if you want to supply another filetype. Just send to us and we will let you know if it can be used.

Key Benefits of Perfect Bound Books

• The High-Street Paperback Look: Offers a premium aesthetic that instantly elevates manual stapling or plastic comb binding methods.
• Customisable Printable Spine: Unlike stapled booklets, perfect binding gives you a flat spine (ideal for books over 40 pages) where you can print your book title, author name, or volume number for easy identification on shelves.
• Long-Lasting Durability: We use advanced PUR (Polyurethane Reactive) binding adhesives, ensuring pages remain firmly attached even with heavy, repeated handling.
• Flexible Volume Runs: From short-run local community heritage books to large commercial orders, our Peterborough-based production facility scales seamlessly to meet your exact demand.

Specifications & Customisation Options

Ideal Applications

• Creative Authors: Self-published fiction, non-fiction novels, poetry collections, and biography books.
• Business & Commercial: High-end corporate brochures, product manuals, annual financial statements, and training handbooks.
• Education & Local Community: School yearbooks, local history chronicles, cookery recipe books, and academic journals.

Artwork Setup Note for Perfect Binding: When preparing your files, please supply your cover design as a single continuous spread (Back Cover + Spine Width + Front Cover). The exact width of your spine depends entirely on your final page count and selected paper weight—our expert team will gladly calculate this for you to ensure a perfectly aligned layout before printing.

Please see Glossary for more generic related information.

Paper & Plastic, Card & Board

Plain Paper & Plastic, Card & Board

Buying plain paper, card or board? Trim, score or perf it with a Finishing Service standard cut sheets are available for most paperstocks in the options. If you need an option adding please just ask.

• Bond Uncoated: Standard "printer paper" with a non-reflective surface, ideal for letterheads.
• Graphic & Carton Board: Thicker cardstock used for packaging or heavy-duty crafts e.g., KraftPak for a rustic look.
• SRA3 Tints: Small format paper pre-dyed in various colours like Trophee Tints rather than being printed with colour.
• Synthetic Paper: A durable, waterproof "paper" made of plastic, often used for outdoor menus or maps.
• Silk: Satin sheen finish for a great professional finish looks and feels.

Finishing items

• Laminating Pouches & Rolls: Plastic film used with a laminating machine to coat paper in a protective Gloss or Matt finish.
• Envelopes: To complete any letter, card or invitation with a sealed wrapping to present to the receiver.
• Self Adhesive Labels: Blank labels supplied on sheets like the 90x90mm White Labels ready for home printing or manual labelling.
• Single Wall Boxes: Standard cardboard shipping boxes e.g., Large A4 size designed for storage or transit.

Printed Paper, Card & Board

We want you to be able to select the right product for you so we want to help you make the right choices with the right information and bust the print jargon.

FINISHED SIZE: Mostly self-explanatory but this refers to the finished size of your product which some people do not pick up on. This means that for instance when an A4 sheet is folded we will put A5 here as this is the size that it will become. We can also refer to a flat sheet size which means the size it is printed and not folded.

NO. OF COLOURS: This is how many printed colours we use. This is most commonly either black and white which is referred to as 1 colour, or full colour which is referred to as 4 colours. These are the four primary colours used for printing known as CMYK, C is CYAN, M is MAGENTA, Y is YELLOW and just to confuse you K is BLACK. These four colours are printed as various tints or solids to create a larger spectrum of colours. There are also specials that are used in Lithographic print which are called Pantone colours. These are premixed colours to ensure the exact printed colour is as expected. The use of pantone colours is widely used across a lot of processes so work well to create a finished article that meets the expected colour.

PAPER TYPES: We would let you know the paper or substrate that we were going to use here, often giving the grammage or weight of the product. This will be shown as GSM which is Grams per Square Metre. The weight of a product can give an indication of the thickness of the sheet but can vary by the finish of the sheet. If the sheet is coated which is often referred to as Silk (Sheen) or Gloss (Shine) the clay or chalk that is used to coat the paper is heavy so is actually thinner than an uncoated sheet of the same grammage. There is also a product which has a light coating on one side only known as monocoated, this is used as a board for packing and greetings cards due to the light coating it is much thicker. We have a rough scale to help with the grammages of sheets which can often help choose a particular weight.

100gsm Uncoated / 130gsm Coated = Lightweight Paper 

120gsm Uncoated / 150gsm Coated = Mediumweight Paper

160gsm Uncoated / 170gsm Coated = Heavyweight Paper

200gsm Uncoated / 200gsm Coated = Lightweight Card

250gsm Uncoated / 250gsm Coated = Mediumweight Card

300gsm Uncoated / 300gsm Coated = Heavyweight Card

350gsm Uncoated / 350gsm Coated / 300gsm monocoated = Lightweight Board

400gsm Uncoated / 400gsm Coated / 330gsm monocoated= Mediumweight Board

450gsm Uncoated / 450gsm Coated / 360gsm monocoated = Heavyweight Board

Uncoated is regular paper finish you can often see paper fibres.

Coated is using a clay or chalk to smooth over the fibres to give more of a sheen to the material.

Monocoated is one side coated the other uncoated typically used for carton, packaging or greetings cards.

FINISHING TYPES:

This area is to select a special finish rather than just the paper finish alone. You may not have all finishes available on each product but here is a list of what might be there.

Lamination: This is to cover a side or both sides of a sheet of paper with a plastic film in either a glossy, matte or soft touch option. Glossy is a shiny finish. Matt is what we would call a flat finish it matts back the colours. Soft touch is known as many things such as velvet. It has a matt finish but with a feel similar to a peach skin.

Foiling: This is almost like having a colour printed but rather than an actual colour it is a metallic film that is applied in a chosen shape or lettering to enhance your print. We can either add foiling to a full colour print which will most of the time require a lamination first so we can print the colour first then laminate and put the foil on top. The other option is to just have foil on its own, this process looks amazing on a coloured card to really enhance the foil. When supplying artwork for foiling we would ask for the printed area to be shown with an extra page of just solid black and white depicting the area to be foiled.

Perforation: This is to cut through a sheet with gaps to hold the sheet together but allow for the sheet to be easily separated when needed.

The following options are typically part of the products' specification already.

Score: This is when the card or board is forced inward using a straight-line form to create a point that can easily be folded without causing damage to the material or print.

Crease: Similar to a score this is using a wheel rather than a form to create the indentation to allow the print to be folded. Using a wheel can be useful for creating score lines in various directions such as boxes.

Trim: To cut the printed material in straight edges using a guillotine

Machine Cut: This is to cut out like above but with the ability to cut curves and shapes, unlike trim this is not limited to just straight edges also known as contour cutting.

Kiss Cut: Similar to Machine Cut however this just cuts the surface for things like stickers that can cut through the sticker material leaving the backing paper so the stickers can be held together and easily removed.

Still need more information or help? Contact us at info@gpprint.co.uk for more information

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