Even working is a term used in
book publishing that means the number of pages in a book is divisible by the number 16 or 32.
[R. M. Ritter, ''The Oxford Guide to Style'', OUP, 2002, p. 1.] A book with 256, 272 or 288 pages, for instance, is an "even working", whilst a book with 254 or 286 pages is not. The significance of 16 or 32, which form the individual "signatures" of which a book is composed, is that they make the most efficient use of the paper used in the
printing
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ea ...
of a book.
[ If the number of printed pages in a book is, for example, 258, then the editor will attempt to move material from the two extra pages so that there will not be 14 blank pages at the end of the book (the next even working after 256 being 272 pages).
]
References
Book publishing
Publishing
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