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Goober Writer reports: <<My document has a total page count that is
divisible by 4... The printer... gives quotes rounded up to a
page count divisible by 8. That's fine, I understand that these are being
printed 8-up... what surprises me is that the cost for printing and binding
a page count divisible by four is MORE than the cost for printing and
binding the page count rounded to divisible by 8. The argument is, there is
labor involved in removing the additional blank pages.>>
That explanation sounds spurious. At most, there would be 4-8 blank pages,
none of which would have to be removed. If they did indeed manually trim out
the blanks, it would cost a fair bit, but nobody in their right mind would
do this.
The cost difference would make good sense if they're quoting based on
printing 4-up instead of 8-up. That often means a smaller press that is
slower based on either net sheet-feeding rate or number of pages per sheet.
(Same basic notion for web printing, though with different details.) Even if
the sheets are fed at comparable rates, you're doing the job in half the
time on the 8-up press: same number of sheets per second, but double the
number of pages per sheet. Since press time (setup and actual printing) is
often the most expensive component of a print job, you'd expect the slower
press to be more expensive.
In any event, go with the lower quote. If there wil be a few blank pages at
the end, add "Notes" in large type at the top of each page, or print order
forms for your other products. Anything to use the space. Or just leave it
blank and let people wonder. <g>
--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the
earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do
so. The first is unpleasant and ill-paid; the second is pleasant and highly
paid."--Bertrand Russell
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