Rational Utilization: Properly selecting and using paper is crucial for ensuring the quality of publications and reducing costs. Those in materials management within the publishing and printing industry must not only select the required paper types and specifications in advance based on the department's annual and quarterly publication plans, but also accurately calculate the required quantities of various types of paper. They must also coordinate and guide printing staff in the rational use of paper to reduce consumption and improve economic efficiency.
Paper Selection: Paper selection involves several aspects, including type, specifications, and quality grade. It's essential not to focus on only one aspect while neglecting others.
When selecting paper types, the main considerations are the characteristics of the printed material and the type of printing press used. For color covers, illustrations, or advertising inserts in books and periodicals, double-sided coated paper or offset paper can be used; for single-sided printed materials such as trademarks, single-sided coated paper or offset paper can be used; for reference books such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, and manuals, dictionary paper or thin letterpress paper is suitable; and for general books, offset printing paper or letterpress printing paper can be used. For printing general books, roll paper (except for flatbed rotary printing presses) is required for rotary printing, while sheet paper is needed for flatbed printing. Offset printing paper is suitable for offset printing, while letterpress paper is sufficient for letterpress printing.
There are many types of printed materials, and the type of paper used must be selected based on the specific characteristics of each material.
The selection of paper specifications involves the paper size for books and periodicals; therefore, it is necessary to introduce the common paper sizes and formats for general books and periodicals.
Full-sheet paper: Paper produced by paper manufacturers according to national standards is called full-sheet paper. A full-sheet sheet is cut or folded into several smaller sheets of equal area; these are called the number of sheets (or "openings"). When bound together, these smaller sheets constitute the book's format. There are unified national standards for the specifications of various formats, so books printed throughout the country of origin are of the same size.
Because paper sizes vary across different specifications, even when cut to the same number of pages, the actual size of the book will differ. Therefore, it's inaccurate to use a single format like "size" when binding books. In my country, 787*1092 (mm) paper is the standard printing sheet. A book printed on this sheet in a 32mo format is called a 32mo book. If 850*1168 (mm) paper is used to print a 32mo book, because the paper size is larger than the standard printing sheet, it's called a "large" 32mo book.
Format Selection The choice of format generally depends on factors such as the nature of the book, the number of pages, the readership level, and the intended use. There are no fixed rules. Most books and periodicals are cut in geometric progressions of 2, which facilitates machine folding during binding. Common formats are 16mo, 32mo, and 64mo, with 32mo being the most frequently used.
Straight Cutting Method: This method involves cutting along the length direction in a geometric progression of 2, and is the most commonly used basic cutting method. Cutting in a geometric progression of 2 can also begin in the width direction, which is called the horizontal cutting method.
Horizontal Cutting Method: This method is rarely used, only for certain covers, inserts, and special printed materials.
Other Cutting Methods: For special publishing needs, sometimes non-geometrically progressive irregular sizes are used, such as 12mo, 18mo, 20mo, 24mo, 28mo, and 36mo. Irregular sizes cannot be machine-folded, cutting is more complicated, and binding requires manual operation, which is prone to errors. Therefore, they are rarely used in general books and periodicals, especially those with large print runs. Other non-geometrically progressive irregular sizes include the 3mo, 5mo, and 7mo methods.
Books printed and bound using the same format and format can have varying sizes and areas depending on the paper specifications used. Therefore, careful attention must be paid to paper specifications when selecting paper. Generally speaking, more authoritative documents or works by prominent figures often use larger paper sizes of 850*1168 (mm), while novels and other ordinary books mostly use standard paper sizes of 787*1092 (mm). Another internationally common size is 880*1230 (mm), which has been officially included in my country's national standards.