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Bookbinding: A Tutorial (1995)

homepage.divms.uiowa.edu

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Re: Bookbinding: A Tutorial (1995)

#21

Post by zeveb »

mgiannopoulos wrote: post #20

A lovely example of super-fast-loading 1995 webpage. Pure content. No garbage. We should find a way to get back to that.

B-b-but think of how much bandwidth could be saved if the whole thing were a webapp! We could replace the images with low-res copies which are always downloaded, and only download the full-res copies when they are viewed. Of course, that requires JavaScript, but every browser that counts (/me glares at eww, links, lynx, elinks et al.) supports it. And never mind about the fact that downloading low-res images and high-res images is more downloading than just high-res images to begin with.

Really, this could best be written as a single-page app. We'll have to rewrite it every six months, of course, in order to comply with current best practices and trends.

It's kinda embarrassing to see someone using static HTML for static text. Think how much better this would be with spinners, animation and ads!

/s

Re: Bookbinding: A Tutorial (1995)

#22

Post by wizardforhire »

meebob wrote: post #17
MichailP wrote: post #5

Now this is an ideal crowd and topic to ask a question that is niggling me for a long time. What paper could you use with regular laser printers to get professionally looking printed book? The regular A4 is just too thick, and books printed this way look clumsy.

In my experience, the paper weight doesn't matter all too much for whether the book feels "professional"- what I find makes a real difference is in how well you trim the book ( http://homepage.divms.uiowa.edu/~jones/book/trim.html ) and the quality of the materials used for the cover- no matter how nicely you bind a book, if you choose a too-flimsy material for the cover, it'll feel homemade.

Absolutely! I bought a heavy duty paper cutter off eBay for less than $100. Just search for heavy duty paper cutter or guillotine paper cutter. They have a huge clamp and mine came with an extra blade. One of the best investments I've ever made.

Re: Bookbinding: A Tutorial (1995)

#24

Post by Yetanfou »

Back in the late 80's and 90's I used to download programming manuals from BBS file hosts (using a self-built 300bps modem, patience being a virtue) which I then printed out on a dot matrix printer (Panasonic KX-P1080 on a C64, later modified with an EPROM from a KX-P1081 to be compatible with the PC clone I got my hands on). The printer used chain-fed paper which I first fed through one way to print the odd pages after which I swapped it around to print the odd ones. After that I took of the chain-feed edges, separated the sheets, made a cover (first on the C64, later on that clone using Harvard Graphics - I had modified a Hercules-compatible graphics card to double the vertical resolution, 720 * 768 pixels of green on black...) and finally - which is the relation to this article - combined the whole stack together into a book.

I did not bind these books though, instead using a press I made from some 2*4's, threaded stock, washers and nuts and a piece of heavy plywood. I put the whole stack into the press, clamped them tightly together at the back end (just above the 'binding', doused the edge in PVA wood glue and overlaid the back with a strip cut from some old jeans. This way I ended up with a whole shelf of blue-jeans-bound books. It might not have been as classy as a 'bound' book but it certainly had style...

Re: Bookbinding: A Tutorial (1995)

#25

Post by jackhack »

ggambetta wrote: post #9

I've had good success with a completely amateur method I learned from my dad (who was anything but a bookbinder): 1. With a saw, cut vertical slits along the "spine", 1 or 2 cm apart, and just 2 or 3 mm deep (that's roughly 1/2" and 1/10" respectively, for the metric challenged). 2. Take some dental floss. Make a knot on one end, jam it in one of the end slits. 3. Run the dental floss alternatively up and down throug…

>2 or 3 mm deep (that's roughly 1/2" and 1/10" respectively, for the metric challenged).

2mm is much, much smaller than a half inch. a half-inch is closest to 12mm.

Millimeters (mm) Inches (") (decimal) Inches (") (fraction)

2 mm 0.0787 ″ 5/64 ″

3 mm 0.1181 ″ 1/8 ″

Re: Bookbinding: A Tutorial (1995)

#26

Post by mallaidh »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #23
mgiannopoulos wrote: post #20

A lovely example of super-fast-loading 1995 webpage. Pure content. No garbage. We should find a way to get back to that.

It would just need a bit of CSS to make it look modern without making it slower.

Why does it need to look "modern?" If it's not broken, why try fixing it?

Re: Bookbinding: A Tutorial (1995)

#27

Post by noufalibrahim »

Yetanfou wrote: post #24

Back in the late 80's and 90's I used to download programming manuals from BBS file hosts (using a self-built 300bps modem, patience being a virtue) which I then printed out on a dot matrix printer (Panasonic KX-P1080 on a C64, later modified with an EPROM from a KX-P1081 to be compatible with the PC clone I got my hands on). The printer used chain-fed paper which I first fed through one way to print the odd pages af…

This sounds very interesting. Do you have any pictures of these books or your press? I'd be very interested in seeing them.

Re: Bookbinding: A Tutorial (1995)

#28

Post by noufalibrahim »

andrewwharton wrote: post #11

I started getting into book binding as there's a lot of stuff online that I want to collect into volumes for future preservation and reference, and then I discovered that there's book binding[1] and then there's bookbinding[2]. The rabbit hole runs deep and there's a long tradition of craftsmanship that I really hope is being passed along and not lost. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av_rU-yOPd4 [2] https://www.y…

There's quite an active community as far as I know. It intersects with the calligraphy practitioners. Here's a journal that discusses it which is still actively published http://www.johnnealbooks.com/prod_detail_list/Bound-and-Lett...

Re: Bookbinding: A Tutorial (1995)

#29

Post by 542458 »

mallaidh wrote: post #26
Double_a_92 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would just need a bit of CSS to make it look modern without making it slower.

Why does it need to look "modern?" If it's not broken, why try fixing it?

At very least there are some modernizations you could do for text legibility. Screens are bigger now, and today lines of text that run the entire width of the page are unnecessarily difficult to read. Similarly, with more screen real-estate you could pump up that font-size and line spacing a bit.

Re: Bookbinding: A Tutorial (1995)

#30

Post by ggambetta »

jackhack wrote: post #25
ggambetta wrote: post #9

I've had good success with a completely amateur method I learned from my dad (who was anything but a bookbinder): 1. With a saw, cut vertical slits along the "spine", 1 or 2 cm apart, and just 2 or 3 mm deep (that's roughly 1/2" and 1/10" respectively, for the metric challenged). 2. Take some dental floss. Make a knot on one end, jam it in one of the end slits. 3. Run the dental floss alternatively up and down throug…

>2 or 3 mm deep (that's roughly 1/2" and 1/10" respectively, for the metric challenged). 2mm is much, much smaller than a half inch. a half-inch is closest to 12mm. Millimeters (mm) Inches (") (decimal) Inches (") (fraction) 2 mm 0.0787 ″ 5/64 ″ 3 mm 0.1181 ″ 1/8 ″

Yep, sorry I wasn't clear enough. By "respectively" I meant that the first measurement I mentioned (1-2 cm) was equivalent to 1/2", and the second one (2-3 mm) was equivalent to the second one (1/10").
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