Bookbinding
I have made it a rule to back up the input data to the other magnetic medium because the data on a computer disappears easily by my carelessness and/or the computer trouble. Still, I have to move occasionally the data to the new environment to keep the data usable because the standards of the hardware and the software which handle the data change sometimes. So I can get the peace of mind only when the data was printed out.
Of course I was continuing to print out this site from the beginning. One day, I thought of having a copying shop bind up my printed site. I newly printed out my site with "hukuro-toji" mode*), that is, the dual page mode. Then I took them to the copying shop. After binding them at once, they said, "There is the valley fold print which you can print on both faces of paper."
I thought that "the valley fold print" needs the special printing machine, and I did nothing. One day, I operated a word processor called Word, and found the valley fold print was available with my Windows machine. I did not know the meaning of the "valley fold print" but tried to print out a 100 pages of my manuscript with the valley fold print.
Surprisingly page 100 and 1 were printed on the one side of paper. Then I repeated printing with different pages of trial manuscripts, but I was not able to understand the paging rule of the valley fold print. I thought the Word has some bugs, and I gave up the valley fold print.
But the valley fold print, which reduced the thickness of a book to half, was attractive for me when I thought about the increasing of the contents of my site. I asked about the meaning of the valley fold print to a classmate of the English conversation class. He piled a few sheets of paper at once, folded them at the center, and said that this was the valley fold. I was able to understand the paging rule for the first time.
When I looked around my room anew, I found many valley fold prints, such as newspaper, weeklies, and many kinds of booklets. I have been using such prints since childhood, but I did not know that those prints were called the valley fold print. I was ashamed but it was natural that I was not able to find out the paging rule.
I could understand the paging rule. But the book that has many pages becomes thick and the opposite side of binding side becomes uneven. I looked for the method for avoiding the unevenness, and found it at the printing option of the Word. That is, when I input there 4 as an option, the page 4 and 1 were printed on the one face, the page 2 and 3 were printed on the other face. In a similar way the remainder was printed as follows; (8-5, 6-7), (12-9, 10-11), .... I became able to fold each printed sheet, and to pile and bind them.
The uneven problem was solved.
The book making resembles to the web site making. I am concurrently the writer, editor, and publisher of a book. I have to manage writing, font sizes, page layout, and printing method. It is a troublesome but pleasant job. Recently I printed out my web site with the valley fold print, and had a copying shop bind them. The completed book has 171 pages. I am fond of both the appearance of the book and reading it.
*) I do not know whether it is right or not but I translated the Japanese word "hukuro-toji" as the dual page. The actual process of the bookbinding that I call the dual page mode is as follows;
The contents of the serial two pages are printed on one face of paper.
The printed face is kept outside, and the paper is folded at the center of two pages(The unprinted face remains inside.)
The sheets are piled as the folds become to the same side.
The piled sheets are bound at the opposite side of the folded side.
uploaded
June 3, 2007