Real World Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications

Saddle Stitching

Take another look at the magazine that we’ve been using as an example. The staples that anchor the pages at the spine of the magazine are actually created from a spool of wire. For the binding process, the loose sheets of printed pages that constitute the magazine are draped together over a saddle-like holder (hence the term saddle stitching). The wire is fed into position, cut to the correct length for the thickness of the magazine, bent into shape, and then the legs of the staple are driven through the pages. Finally, the legs are bent into the final staple shape (Figure 3.22). Of course, this all takes place at high speed, in about the same amount of time it takes you to say the word magazine.

Figure 3.22. In saddle stitching, ...