Book trimming is the stage of the
book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...
production process in which the
page
Page most commonly refers to:
* Page (paper), one side of a leaf of paper, as in a book
Page, PAGE, pages, or paging may also refer to:
Roles
* Page (assistance occupation), a professional occupation
* Page (servant), traditionally a young m ...
edges of a book are trimmed so that all pages will stack with perfect edge alignment within the finished book jacket.
The step before book trimming is the
binding of the folded printing sheets. Trimming is performed either with a hydraulic book trimmer that is able to cut a whole book in one or two passes or, until the invention of hydraulic book trimmers, with a cutting press (or lying press) and
plough
A plough or plow ( US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, iron or ...
.
Cutting principles
Knife cut principle
The book-cutting machine works with three knives and uses the knife-cut principle. The knife-cut principle operates with only one knife per edge which cuts against a rubber surface. This surface supports the cut force. The three-knife-trim is performed in one step. The block is aligned and fixed by the pressure bar. The three knives cut all edges except the spine; new machines need only one step.
Shear cut principle
The shear cut principle works with two knives – upper and bottom knife. The bottom knife is fixed and the upper knife works against the fixed one. Example of the shear cut principle is the cut of the paper web in the web offset machine and this is realized by a circular blade. To cut simple brochures (booklets) is used by a trimmer which works in two steps.
Burst cut
The third principle is the burst cut. This knife does not need a counter-acting tool. The required cut force is generated by the clamping force of the clamped paper.
[Kipphan, H. 2001. ''Handbook of print media: technologies and production methods'', Vol. 1, p. 784.]
See also
*
Book publishing
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
*
Bookbinding
Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book of codex format from an ordered stack of ''signatures'', sheets of paper folded together into sections that are bound, along one edge, with a thick needle and strong thread. Cheaper, b ...
*
Bleed (printing)
In printing, bleed is printing that goes beyond the edge of where the sheet will be trimmed. In other words, the bleed is the area to be trimmed off. The bleed is the part on the side of a document that gives the printer a small amount of space t ...
References
Print production
Book arts
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