{"id":702,"date":"2019-07-09T18:36:04","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T18:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.printivity.com\/insights\/?p=702"},"modified":"2025-07-30T18:43:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T18:43:03","slug":"what-is-creep-in-a-saddle-stitch-booklet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insights.printivity.com\/what-is-creep-in-a-saddle-stitch-booklet","title":{"rendered":"SOLVED – What is Creep in a Saddle-Stitch Booklet?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To those who don\u2019t work in the printing industry, saddle stitch booklet printing<\/a> may seem like a fairly simple binding process. Fold sheets of paper in half to make the pages, add a cover, staple it all together in the fold, and you\u2019re good to go \u2013 right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, it\u2019s not that simple, in large part due to \u201ccreep.\u201d If you\u2019re wondering \u201cWhat is creep in printing?\u201d, it refers to the shift in paper that occurs when the document\u2019s pages are folded inside each other. Since inserting folded pages is a key part of the saddle stitch binding<\/a> technique, creep is a design issue that must be taken into account before doing the actual binding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Get<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How creep affects saddle\nstitch booklets<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n
\n
\"A
Once the folded sheets are bound together, the face-trim will cut off the edges of the inner-most sheets. This is called \u201ccreep\u201d.<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Creep occurs because the trim margins of pages in inner signatures of saddle-stitched books<\/a> are actually narrower than pages in outer signatures. A signature is a group of pages (usually four) printed on both sides of a single sheet of paper. All the signatures in a booklet are folded and inserted into each other. Then they are folded, bound, and cut to create the pages of the booklet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you do not account for creep in your design for saddle-stitch booklets, the content in the center of the booklet will be closer to the edge of the page than those at the beginning or end. The same goes for repeating elements such as page numbers, tabs, borders and more. This can cause misaligned borders and other problems that make the booklet look disjointed and poorly printed. In cases of severe saddle-stitch creep, which tends to happen with high page count<\/a> and thicker paper stock, there is a possibility that over 1\/16 can actually get trimmed off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Get Instant Quotes – Custom Saddle Stitch Booklet Printing<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The\namount of creep that occurs in a saddle stitch booklet varies according to the\nnumber of pages and thickness of the paper. The higher the page count, the more\nthe pages will get pushed out due to creep. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Designing a booklet to\ncompensate for the creep in saddle-stitch<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In\nbooklets of 40 pages or less, the creep can often be barely noticeable and\ndoesn\u2019t need to be accounted for. In booklets with more than 40, compensating\nfor the inevitable creep requires incrementally shifting the page content in\norder to end up with a consistent outer margin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s\nan example that shows how the thickness of a booklet can affect saddle-stitch\ncreep. Suppose your print project involves a 12-page booklet on 100lb book weight paper. This will result in a booklet that\nis 1\/32\u201d thick. A page number (or some other repeating graphic element) that is\n1\/8\u201d from the edge of the page will only shift 1\/76\u201d in the center of the\nbooklet. This would make the shift almost imperceptible except to the trained\neye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now let\u2019s see what happens with a 52 page booklet with a thickness of 3\/16\u201d. In this case, a graphic element near the outer edge of the page would move more than 1\/16\u201d, or about half the distance between its position in the center spread and the edge of the page. This amount of movement would certainly be noticeable and would not reflect well on the print quality of the booklet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\ndesigning a high page count booklet, keep in mind that the inner pages\nexperience more creep than the outer pages. As a result, content on pages closer\nto the center of the booklet must shift inward more than on the outer pages. When\nmoving the content, it\u2019s important to have margins of sufficient width so that\nany artwork or graphics won\u2019t end up too close to the edge of the booklet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Pro\ntip: avoid using images and borders that spread across two pages, as they can\ncause problems when attempting to line them up on adjacent pages.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Get Instant Quotes – Custom Saddle Stitch Booklet Printing<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The\nthickness of the paper can also affect the amount of shifting needed to\ncompensate for the creep in saddle-stitch. Thicker stocks will require more shifting,\nespecially on the inner pages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Printivity approach to\nmanaging saddle-stitch creep<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

At\nPrintivity, we require our customers to send in print-ready files for their\nprint projects. This enables us to provide quick turnaround times while still\ndelivering the highest quality printing. As discussed, saddle-stitch creep is\ngenerally not much of an issue with booklets of 40 pages or less. For the\nsafety margin, we require customers to keep important text and images 1\/8″\nfrom the edge of the final dimension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saddle-stitch is a very popular method for binding booklets. However, if you don\u2019t feel comfortable adjusting for creep or just don\u2019t want to bother with it, there is a solution that eliminates the issue altogether \u2013 perfect bound book printing<\/a>. Because perfect binding<\/a> uses a strong adhesive rather than coils or staples, it produces no creep, no matter how thick the booklet. So there\u2019s no need to account for creep when designing a perfect bound<\/a> book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of how you choose to handle saddle-stitch creep, you can count on Printivity for a professionally bound booklet printing <\/a>with all the text aligned as it should be. For further assistance, please call our Customer Service Representatives at 1-877-649-5463<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To those who don\u2019t work in the printing industry, saddle stitch booklet printing may seem like a fairly simple binding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,10,12,15],"tags":[170,177,185,318,367,409,410,412],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design","category-design_tips_and_tutorials","category-print_ready_files","category-products","category-vocabulary_and_terms","tag-design","tag-design-tips","tag-digital-printing","tag-online-printing","tag-print-ready-files","tag-saddle-stitch-binding","tag-saddle-stitch-creep","tag-saddle-stitched-booklet"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/insights.printivity.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Insurance_Expo_Brochure-_-Spread-1.jpg?fit=2000%2C1200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgont1-bk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insights.printivity.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insights.printivity.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insights.printivity.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insights.printivity.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insights.printivity.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/insights.printivity.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9807,"href":"https:\/\/insights.printivity.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions\/9807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insights.printivity.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insights.printivity.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insights.printivity.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insights.printivity.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}