Printing your books
Every SumiPress book comes in two editions. The screen edition is for reading on a display. The print edition is built to become a real object — an A5 booklet you fold and stitch yourself, or hand to a print shop. Here's how to make one.
» WHAT YOU'RE PRINTINGA booklet, already sorted
The print file is one PDF per book, and it's already imposed — the pages are arranged in the right order to fold down into an A5 saddle-stitch booklet, so there's nothing for you to rearrange. The shape of the job is always the same: print it double-sided, fold it in half, staple the spine, press it flat, then trim the edge.
It's designed for buff paper — the warm, cream off-white that gives SumiPress books their look — but it prints perfectly well on plain white if that's what you have. Everything's monochrome, so any black-and-white printer or copier handles it.
» THE EASY WAYHand it to a print shop
If you'd rather not fold and staple, any print or copy shop can make these for you — and because it's black-and-white, it's cheap. Give them the print PDF and ask for:
- An A5 saddle-stitched booklet.
- Black & white (mono) — no colour.
- Printed as supplied, at 100% — the file is already imposed, so they shouldn't re-impose it or "fit to page."
- Ideally: cover on 160gsm, interior on 80gsm (see the paper notes below) — though a shop's standard stock is fine if you'd rather keep it simple.
A shop with a booklet finisher will fold, stitch, and trim it for you, and you walk out with a finished book.
» THE HANDS-ON WAYMake one at home
Making one yourself is a small craft project — an hour with a printer, a stapler, and a cutter, and you've got a book on your shelf that you bound.
- A printer that can print double-sided (duplex) — or you can print one side, flip the stack, and print the other.
- Paper — buff/cream if you can get it, white if not. Ideally 160gsm for the cover and 80gsm for the interior.
- A long-arm (long-reach) stapler — a normal stapler can't reach the middle of a folded A5 booklet; a long-arm one can.
- Ideally a paper cutter / guillotine to trim the edge (a craft knife and steel ruler also work).
Print it double-sided.
The file is A4, imposed two-up. Print it double-sided at 100% / actual size — not "fit to page," which would shrink it. For the duplex flip, choose short-edge binding so the pages line up correctly once folded.
Using two paper weights? Print the cover on 160gsm and the interior on 80gsm as two passes — print the cover page, swap the paper, then print the rest.
Fold.
Stack the sheets in printed order and fold the whole stack in half — A4 down to A5. Running a bone folder (or the back of a butter knife) along the crease gives a sharper, flatter fold.
Stitch the spine.
Open the folded stack flat and staple along the fold — two staples, evenly spaced — with the long-arm stapler. That's the "saddle stitch." Fold it closed again and it's a booklet.
Press it flat.
A freshly folded and stapled booklet — a thick one especially — springs open and won't sit flat. Put it under a firm, even weight to settle: a stack of heavy books, a chopping board with something heavy on top, anything flat and weighty. Leave it a few hours, or overnight for the best result. Burnishing the spine first — a bone folder, or the back of a spoon, run firmly along the fold — helps set the crease. It comes out flatter, closes properly, and trims cleaner.
Trim the edge.
When you fold a thick booklet, the inner pages push out past the outer ones — that's called creep. Trim the fore-edge (the open side, opposite the spine) with the paper cutter for a clean, flush edge. A few millimetres is usually all it takes.
100 pages makes a satisfyingly chunky booklet — which also means the fold and the creep are more pronounced than on a thin one. That's exactly why the trim step earns its place.
» PAPER & FINISHThe buff, and the weights
The books were designed on buff — a warm cream stock — because it's the SumiPress look and it's easier on the eyes than bright white. If you want the intended feel, look for cream / ivory / off-white paper (often sold as "cream 80gsm" or "conqueror cream"). White works fine too; the ink just sits on a cooler background.
Weights are a recommendation, not a rule. 80gsm for the interior keeps the booklet from getting too bulky to fold and staple; 160gsm for the cover gives it a proper cover feel and helps it stand up on a shelf. A single weight throughout still makes a good book — the two-weight split is just the nicer finish.
» MAKING IT YOURSWant it set up differently?
The files are prepared the way I'd make them — but they're yours now, and you might want something specific to how you print and bind: a little more gutter margin for a tighter bind, a resize for different paper, a small nudge to the margins. You don't need design software for that.
Hand the PDF to an AI, describe the change in plain words — "add a few millimetres to the gutter," "resize this for Letter paper," "shift the inside margins in a little" — and it can make the edit and give the file back. I use and recommend Claude for exactly this kind of thing; it does the fiddly part so you don't have to.
» A FEW TIPSBefore you commit the whole set
- Print one book first as a test — check the duplex flip lines up and the scale is right before you commit paper to all five.
- Keep scaling at 100%. The single most common mistake is a printer quietly "fitting to page" and shrinking everything — turn that off.
- Letter paper (US)? The file is A4. Print at 100% and trim to taste, or scale the A4 content onto Letter — either works, since you're trimming the edge anyway.
- No long-arm stapler? A print shop will stitch a stack you've already printed for a small fee — or, in a pinch, open the booklet over the edge of a table and staple from the fold with a standard stapler pushed to its limit.