Coil Bound Documents

You can choose any quantity you like from 1.

These are the standard size documents that you can choose from:

• A6 - 105 x 148mm
• A5 - 210 x 148mm
• A4 - 210 x 297mm
• A3 - 297 x 420mm
• 210 x 210mm

Please note that not all sizes are available in Landscape orientation, though most are.

We can also do custom sizes where technically possible. Please have a chat with the helpdesk on 01452 751900 to discuss.

Portrait means that the width is less than the height, landscape means that the width is greater than the height. Think of paintings on a wall, landscape paintings tend to be wider than they are tall, portraits tend to be narrower than they are tall.

These are the colours that we keep in stock:

• Black
• Clear
• Silver
• White

There are many other colours that we can special order in for you. Contact the helpdesk if you'd like a special colour. These do cost a little extra, especially if you only want a small quantity bound and they will add a few days to the lead time.

PDF (online soft proof). This is a technical process to check that your artwork is printable and to prepare it for printing as far as possible. We aim to provide your soft proof within 4 working hours and you will get an email notification when it is ready.

The PDF that you send us (your artwork) has a pre-flight check carried out and a number of automatic corrections may also be made if necessary. The resulting soft proof is a PDF that is viewable through your admin area of the web site. It is very important that you carefully review your soft proof and the pre-flight report that we send to you.

If your artwork fails our preflight checks you will not get a proof, but you will get a report letting you know what is wrong with your file. You can then fix the problem and resubmit your artwork.

We may warn you about potential problems with your artwork. In this case, your artwork CAN be printed and you will get a proof to check. You should carefully check the warnings in your report before deciding whether to proceed or submit new artwork.

Your first soft proof is included in the price of your order. If you find that you need to make alterations to your artwork and ask us to create another proof, we may make a small charge for each additional soft proof. Please contact the helpdesk to arrange payment if you need additional proofs.

Remember, this is a technical file check, we don't proof read your work or critique your design!

Hard copy proof.

This is a single physical copy of your document. When you select this option, your artwork will go through exactly the same steps as a soft copy proof and in fact you will also get a soft proof available to view through the web site. Do not approve this before you have examined your hard copy!

Please remember that you will have to pay for your order before we can manufacture your hard copy proof. You can cancel your order after recieving your hardcopy proof, but you will be charged at the rate for one document and the remainder of your payment will be refunded.

We will try to get your hardcopy proof out to you as soon as possible, but it can take up to 5 working days for us to despatch, depending on the options that you have selected. If you wish to expedite your hard copy proof, please call the helpdesk to discuss. They may be able to suggest ways to speed up this process, for instance you may wish to see only the printed sheets and not wait to see the cover laminated.

To read more about proofs, read the help section:

HELP > ARTWORK > PROOFS   (opens in a new window)

Card covers are the most popular option for Coil bound book covers.

You can choose either "standard" or "fancy" card covers

• Standard card covers are white card and you can choose from a wide range of uncoated matt, recycled, gloss and silk paper. Standard card allows you to choose from our full range of finishing options.
• Fancy card is something a bit special. You can choose Pearlescent card, genuine Kraft (brown) or from a range of British made high quality Vanguard coloured cards. We can offer a lot of our finishing options for fancy card covers, but not laminating.

Once you select one of these options, you will be able to customise your cover to your requirements. For example, choose the type of printing (colour, B&W), the type of paper to use for the cover and laminating.

Why do we allow you to choose just a front, or a back cover as well as both front and back? The reason for this is that for some projects, our clients want to mix and match printed covers with other "outer" cover options, for instance heavy frosted plastic.

There are a few options that are not yet available to price up and order online. These include:

• Die cut covers. We have both traditional (large platen) die cutting and laser die cutting. Yes, that is literally using an industrial laser to cut shapes in your cover!
• Rigid & semi rigid plastic covers.
• "Duplexed" and other fancy covers. We manufacture a lot of Journals and similar products and these often require a creative and flexible approach. Do you want a bright pink fabric with hot foiling on the outside of the cover and full colour printed card on the inside? No problem! We have the specialised machinery and expertise to deliver complex products that are customised for your individual project.
Hot Foiling. We have extensive traditional and digital hot foiling facilities in-house. Please contact the helpdesk in the first instance to discuss this and we can add hot foiling to your order.

If you are interested in any of the options that are not available online, please chat with the helpdesk and we'll put together an individual quotation for you.

Don't forget that we also manufacture a range of wire bound and hard cover wire bound documents. That's a different product, so use the product menu to navigate to that product page.

Normally, you would only choose this option if you are also choosing tabbed dividers for your document.

This option selects a slightly larger cover size, which extends over the tabs and gives them some protection against wear and tear. It does not extend in any other direction. We highly recommend this option if you are choosing tabs, but bear in mind it will hide the tabs until you open the front cover.

You can select this option without selecting tabbed dividers if you wish, but we do not recommend it.

Why do we allow you to choose just a front, or a back cover as well as both front and back? The reason for this is that for some projects, our clients want to mix and match printed covers with other "outer" cover options, for instance heavy frosted plastic.

Standard types:

• Gloss paper. Triple coated gloss paper. This is a gloss paper similar to the ones that you see in magazines and illustrated "coffee table" books. This is a commercial printing paper with a semi gloss finish. It is not the same as the high gloss paper you may use for photographs in your inkjet printer.
• Silk paper.Triple coated silk paper. This is a silk paper similar to the ones that you see in magazines and illustrated "coffee" table books. It is quite matt with a slight sheen.
• White matt. A smooth white uncoated paper with good opacity.
• Off white recycled. This is NAUTILUS® Classic, a 100% recycled Blue Angel uncoated paper. NAUTILUS® Classic is made from 100% PCW (Post Consumer Waste) and is an authentic recycled shade.
• Cream book wove. This is genuine Munken Print Cream 15 from Arctic Paper in Sweden. It is a very high quality cream shaded paper developed specifically for book printing.

Fancy types:

Remember - with Colour+WHITE printing, you can use full colour printing even on the darkest of paper.

• Kraft. Genuine Kraft board. This is a thick natural brown coloured board that has been especially produced to be able to take a good quality print. The organic style of this material must form part of your design. You are not dealing with smooth white paper! Make sure you read the artwork preparation guide.
• Sirio Pearl Oyster. Sirio Pearl is the name of the paper, Oyster the colour. Pulp-coloured papers and boards with a pearlescent surface. Made with ECF pulp. Pulp-dyed with light-fast pigments. This one always provokes a reaction with us! First of all the manufacturer is Fedrigoni, which has got to be one of the coolest names ever. Secondly it's one of the most outrageously expensive papers we use, it even has it's own little exclusive storage area in the factory! It does live up to it's Italian designer name though and looks fantastic.
• Vanguard. A range of smooth coloured board. Vanguard is made by James Cropper and the paper making heritage on the site of the James Cropper paper mill in Cumbria stretches back to 1753. These are the colours that we hold in stock, if you need anything different, please have a chat with the helpdesk and we'll help if we can. Please note: if you have chosen a strong or dark colour (which most of these are), almost NO printing will show unless you choose the WHITE option as well. Even if the printing is visible, all colours except black will not be reproduced accurately unless you also choose the WHITE option.

Some notes about the paper

All paper is high quality and manufactured from responsibly managed and sustainable sources.

All papers can be written on with a ball point pen. Coated papers are not recommended for writing on with a fountain pen, select uncoated paper if this is an issue.

Remember that you can order free samples that will show you the quality of the printing as well as the different paper types and weights. Just call the helpdesk on 01452 751900 to request samples.

Printing is done on the latest generation production digital presses. The print quality is superb and you are welcome to ask the helpdesk for samples.

To keep costs to a minimum you can choose from:

• Colour outside, blank inside

• Colour both sides
• Colour outside, B&W inside
• B&W both sides

Colour+WHITE printing

Some of our presses are WHITE +CMYK +CLEAR machines.

What does the extra WHITE colour allow you do do? If you are printing on a bright white substrate the answer is nothing, white is already part of the mix. What about if you want to print on a coloured substrate? For instance a black card. Traditional CMYK printing relies on a bright white substrate to make the full colour images that you see. So CMYK print on a black paper is pretty much invisible. Black and any other colour just makes black. However, we can print WHITE, THEN CMYK all in one go. So the areas on a sheet with print have a white base colour added so that the other colours will appear normally. For another example, imagine a natural brown Kraft paper with text and a logo printed. Without white ink technology, the colours will appear dull and will not match your design on screen. With white ink technology, they will appear very close to your original intent.

What does the extra CLEAR colour allow you to do? This is a clear gloss ink and is used for decorative effects. With clear ink, we print the other way around, i.e. CMYK and then CLEAR. If you have a matt or silk paper, the clear gloss can highlight printed areas in a similar way to a spot UV varnish (although it is not quite as glossy). A more subtle effect is created by printing on neutral areas. So the area printed in clear gloss will appear invisible at some angles, but catch the light and stand out at others. At the time of writing this, we don't offer clear as a standard option online, so please have a chat with the helpdesk if you'd like to incorporate this into your project. Don't forget to ask for samples, these will give you a far better idea of what kind of effect you can achieve with clear gloss print.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The prices generated by our online quotes allow for UP TO 15% total white ink coverage, when that option is selected. This should be suitable for the majority of cases. If your artwork uses more than 15% total white ink coverage, there will be pro-rata surcharge that we will discuss with you before we go ahead with any printing.

You can choose from either a Gloss, Matt or Soft touch protective laminate. Soft touch laminate is a matt laminate, but with a tactile soft finish. This is a very fashionable and doesn't mark as easily as matt laminate.

Laminated covers look great, but this also gives you some more protection to your cover. Of these options, gloss is the most durable and least prone to marking.

There is a cost associated with laminating, so we allow you to specify whether you want the OUTSIDE of your card cover laminated, or both sides.

If you want to digitally hot foil your document cover, you must select a laminate type first as this type of foiling is only possible on a cover that's been laminated.

Hot foiling is only available for card covers (standard, standard with laminate or fancy). It is not available for clear or frosted plastic covers.

Hot foil is a thin sheet that can be applied to paper, card, fabric and many other materials. In fact, the "metal" controls in your car are usually a hard plastic covered with a hot foil. In the context of printing book covers, the nature of hot foil and how we apply it allows for some very pleasing effects that can be used to embellish your book. For instance, we can print the title in shiny gold with a mirror like appearance.

If you are considering hot foiling, you really need to read the artwork preparation guide, where we go into detail about the kinds of effects and embellishments you can have and how to achieve them. Importantly, the guide also explains the limitations of the instant online quotation system and when you need to contact the helpdesk for a quote for your specific job.

"Outer" covers are a popular choice where your project needs a simple plain cover, or if it needs a bit of extra protection. These can be used by themselves, or in combination with printed covers. We let you decide whether to have outer covers at the front, back, both or neither!

You cannot hot foil print on either clear PVC or frosted covers.

• Clear PVC covers. Back in the mists of time these also used to be called "Acetate" covers, though thankfully they are not made of acetate. A typical use for these covers is at the front of a report. The report is then printed on normal paper and a card back applied. We use sturdy 240 micron covers as standard, but can special order thinner material if required. If you need thinner clear PVC covers, please call the helpdesk on 01452 751900.
• Thick frosted covers. These are high quality covers with a textured and opaque finish. They are suitable for the fronts and / or backs of documents. Our standard covers are 500 microns (0.5mm) thick. We can special order 800 micron thick covers but this will add a little extra cost and lead time to your order. If you need this option please call the helpdesk to discuss.

If there are any other options that you'd like, but can't see here on line, call the helpdesk for a chat as we haven't yet put all possible options into this price calculator.

We stock an extensive range of high quality foils manufactured by Kurz.

Please note that we offer a "descriptive" name for each foil colour, i.e. Cloud Grey. Foil manufacturers do not give a descriptive names, just numbers! So these descriptive names have been made up by us at Inky in order to help you differentiate between shades when you are ordering. After each name we give a reference in brackets, for instance L362. This gives the manufacturer's reference, in this case Luxor 362. You should ask for a foil swatch sample, especially if the exact colour of the foil is important to you.

If you have access to a Kurz swatch book, you can look the colours up yourself using the reference number in brackets. L stands for Luxor, C stands for Colorit, AF stands for Alufin.

If you request foil samples from us, we will send an Inky manufactured swatch of the foils that we currently stock as standard colours. We cannot supply Kurz swatch books, these must be ordered from Kurz directly.

You can select one foil colour using the instant online quotation. This is just to keep the instant quote generator as simple as possible. If your design requires multiple colours, we can foil as many different colours as you want. However you'll need to speak with the heldesk to get a quotation for multi-coloured hot foiling.

Clear gloss foil imparts no colour to the print, but it is often applied on top of a printed area, giving a highlighted, textured affect. It also looks fantastic with no print below and using a deep impression.

Pearl foil is translucent. If applied on top of a printed area, you can see the printing underneath, but the colour is changed with a the pearlescent lustre.

Matt foils are exactly that. They can look very much like traditional letterpress or lithographic inks. The main difference is that foils are completely opaque. This is a great advantage as it means you can print light colours onto dark coloured card. The foiled area will show bright and true, whereas the colour of inks will vary according to the colour of the card that they are printed onto.

Gloss foils have a high gloss shine.

We also usually carry dull gloss gold and silver foils. If you would like this type of finish for your project, please contact the helpdesk to discuss.

We can apply one foil colour on top of another. This does not behave the same as inks: if you print a red dot on top of a white area, you don't get a pink dot, you get a red dot as the foils are opaque. The only exceptions to this are where we note that the foil is translucent or clear.

Please bear in mind that hot foiling is not the same process as printing and what is achievable is different. For example, you cannot create a half tone screen with foiling. Please read the artwork preparation guide for more information.

In some circumstances, we can special order colours that we don't normally stock. Please contact the helpdesk if you'd like to discuss this.

While Kurz manufactures foil to an extremely high standard, there may be slight colour differences between different batches manufactured.

This type of foiling uses engraved copper or brass dies. It's absolutely the best way of hot foiling book covers, however the dies themselves are fairly expensive to make. If you are printing larger numbers this is a very small cost per book, but for very short runs (say less than 50 books), this can add a fair amount per book. That's why we give you the option of just foiling a smaller area and choosing whether to foil the front cover AND rear cover separately. That way you can get an instant price. However, we'd always recommend chatting to the helpdesk, especially if this is your first project using hot foiling. They are able to recommend, and quote, the best size and combination of dies for your project.

To put it another way: we have simplified the options here, otherwise some people get confused. You choose a small area of the cover, or the whole cover. We do that so that you can get an instant price without the quote form getting too complex. If neither of these options suit you, pick up the phone and talk to us. We can engrave any size of die you want and will create an individual quote for you.

A few more notes:

• Under all circumstances, we will recalculate your die size based on your actual artwork and adjust the price accordingly if necessary.
• A die is a physical object, a rectangular engraved slab of metal. If you have two small areas to foil, the size of the die must cover both areas and all of the area in between.
• If you plan to reprint your book, We MAY be able to keep your die for you and re-use it. We do not guarantee this and you will need to ask us to keep the die! If you reprint a book using the same die, there will be a modest cost saving. The bigger the die, the more expensive it is and the more incentive to try and re-use it. We cannot send you your die and we cannot accept a die made elsewhere.

We'll try to explain all of the options here, but there is no substitute for physical samples. So, have a chat with the helpdesk and they will send you printed samples so that you can see the differences yourself.

• All B&W. Good quality B&W printed on the latest generation high quality black & white digital presses.
• All colour. Superb quality colour printed on the latest generation heavy production digital presses. We print everything colour on these machines, up to and including runs of glossy "coffee table" hardback photo books and catalogues for art galleries. They really are that good.
• Mixture of colour & B&W. This is also run on our colour digital presses, however our operators program the presses to print certain pages in high quality B&W. This is why you will sometimes have a request from our proofing team to identify the B&W pages in your artwork, where our software can't detect whether it is colour or B&W. This is a far more cost effective option compared with printing the whole document in colour.

Interposing. There is one other method we can use to print a mixture of colour and black and white. However it's a little complicated and you will need to pick up the phone to discuss this with us if it seems like the option you need. We can use a technology called Interposing to interleave pre-printed press sheets while simultanously printing the black and white pages. This opens up a few new possibilities. If you want to go totally old school and have a section of glossy colour picture pages within your book, no problem, we can do that. If you have a long run of books with just a few colour pages and want to keep production costs to a minimum, we can print the colour pages on a colour press and interpose them on a Titan, getting you the best of both technologies. Interposing takes some set up, so it's not very cost effective for ultra short print runs.

We always encourage new customers to get some samples before placing their order. Please call the helpdesk on 01452 751900 to arrange this.

Blank pages? If you want a blank page in your document, you must insert one. We don't automagically figure this out for you. Each blank page counts as a B&W page. Do you want all of your pages printed single sided, i.e. with the backs blank? That's another thing entirely and you need to select the single sided option to the "Sides Printed" question in this quote form.

Nearly all of the time, you'll want both sides of the inner sheets of paper (leaves in the document) printed. That's the way documents normally are, so that's the default! If you want a blank page anywhere, well just go right ahead and insert a blank page where you want it and count it as one B&W page in your page count.

Once in a while a customer wants single sided printing and that's where this handy dandy option comes in. Choose SINGLE sided printing and ALL of your leaves will be printed on the FRONT and left blank on the back. If you select SINGLE sided printing, there's no need to insert blank pages (except if you want a blank FRONT as well as a blank back).

Number of black & white pages.

Please note that this is pages, not sheets. For example: a book with 100 sheets of paper inside (leaves) is a 200 page book.

If you have any blank pages, for example before the start of a chapter, you must count the blank page as a black & white page.

Number of colour pages.

Please note that this is pages, not sheets. For example: a book with 100 sheets of paper inside (leaves) is a 200 page book.

If you have any blank pages, for example before the start of a chapter, you must count the blank page as a black & white page.

If you want tabbed dividers, please consider whether you also need oversized covers. See the help for oversized covers for more details.

Tabs or Tabbed Dividers are a handy dandy way to seperate out sections of your document. We've all seen them, from tatty bits of coloured card in an A4 lever arch file through to custom foiled and laminated in high end journals.

This section is a little more complicated than "how many do you want" because Inky die cuts all our own tabs in house. Don't worry, you can still have the simple stuff, just ignore all the extras! Because we die cut our own tabs, we can offer A6, A5 and A4 tabs, cut on the long or short edge and A3 tabs cut on the short edge. We can also cut them neatly to fit your project. Want 6 tabs? No problem, each will be evenly spaced. Obviously the more tabs you have, the less space there is to write on the actual tab part of the divider, so for some projects we may need to discuss how best to achieve the result you want.

Some information about our tabs:

• They are "waterfall" style. If you require "island" style tabs you'll need to discuss this with the helpdesk ahead of time and ask them to create a custom quotation for you.
• Printed on 250gsm matt white card. If you need coloured tabs then we suggest you include the background colour in your print. Pastel colours work best, but you can choose whatever colours you need. We can print on coloured card, but you will need to discuss this ahead of time with the helpdesk and ask them for a custom quotation.

Because we die cut these tabbed dividers ourselves, you can have any quantity that you want. Bear in mind the size of your document and the practicalities of printing on the tabs if you need the "tab" part of the divider.

If necessary, we can have multiple "sets" of dividers within the same document, where the same tab position is used more than once. As always, have a chat with the helpdesk and make your requirements clear.

You can choose from:

• Gloss paper. Triple coated gloss paper. This is a gloss paper similar to the ones that you see in magazines and illustrated "coffee table" books. This is a commercial printing paper with a semi gloss finish. It is not the same as the high gloss paper you may use for photographs in your inkjet printer.
• Silk paper.Triple coated silk paper. This is a silk paper similar to the ones that you see in magazines and illustrated "coffee" table books. It is quite matt with a slight sheen.
• White matt. A smooth white uncoated paper with good opacity.
• Off white recycled. This is NAUTILUS® Classic, a 100% recycled Blue Angel uncoated paper. NAUTILUS® Classic is made from 100% PCW (Post Consumer Waste) and is an authentic recycled shade.

Some notes about the paper

All paper is high quality and manufactured from responsibly managed and sustainable sources.

All papers can be written on with a ball point pen. Coated papers are not recommended for writing on with a fountain pen, select uncoated paper if this is an issue.

Remember that you can order free samples that will show you the quality of the printing as well as the different paper types and weights. Just call the helpdesk on 01452 751900 to request samples.

You can choose from:

• Gloss paper. Triple coated gloss paper. This is a gloss paper similar to the ones that you see in magazines and illustrated "coffee table" books. This is a commercial printing paper with a semi gloss finish. It is not the same as the high gloss paper you may use for photographs in your inkjet printer.
• Silk paper.Triple coated silk paper. This is a silk paper similar to the ones that you see in magazines and illustrated "coffee" table books. It is quite matt with a slight sheen.
• White matt. A smooth white uncoated paper with good opacity.
• Off white recycled. This is NAUTILUS® Classic, a 100% recycled Blue Angel uncoated paper. NAUTILUS® Classic is made from 100% PCW (Post Consumer Waste) and is an authentic recycled shade.

Some notes about the paper

All paper is high quality and manufactured from responsibly managed and sustainable sources.

All papers can be written on with a ball point pen. Coated papers are not recommended for writing on with a fountain pen, select uncoated paper if this is an issue.

Remember that you can order free samples that will show you the quality of the printing as well as the different paper types and weights. Just call the helpdesk on 01452 751900 to request samples.

These are the options available for printing your tabbed dividers.

Bear in mind that you can print over the whole of your divider, not just the tab portion. When designing your print for the tab, you need to factor in the size of the tab achievable and also a good margin to the edge - don't try to print too close to the cut edge.

Simple tabs. Just want some simple plain text on the tab? Don't panic about creating a complex design, just tell us what you want on each tab (just text) and we'll take care of that for you.

You can choose from either a Gloss, Matt or Soft touch protective laminate. Soft touch laminate is a matt laminate, but with a tactile soft finish. This is a very fashionable and doesn't mark as easily as matt laminate.

Laminated tabbed dividers look great, but this also gives them some extra durability. Of these options, gloss is the most durable and least prone to marking.

There is a cost associated with laminating, so we allow you to specify whether you want the FRONT of your divider cover laminated, or both sides.

These are working days to print. Our standard print service is 4 working days to print. You can pay a premium if you want your order on the faster 2 day to print service.

We also offer a "standby" service. Please note that this will schedule on a 10 working days to print, but it may be quicker OR slower, depending on how busy the bindery is. This is the money saving option to choose if you are able to plan well in advance, not for time critical projects!

Please remember to add transit (delivery) time to this and remember that these are working days to print and do not include weekends or bank holidays.

Unless you approve your order by 10am, the day that you approve your proof does not count in the time to print.

We cannot schedule your job to print until you have approved your proof. If you do not have a credit account with us, you will also need to pay for your job before we can schedule your job to print

Delivery is normally the next working day AFTER the job is printed. If you want a Saturday delivery, call the helpdesk to get that cost added to your order. We classify Monday-Friday as working days, Bank Holidays are not working days.

Fill in the full postcode of where this is being sent to so that we can work out a price and check whether we deliver to this area. You'll fill in the full delivery address later once you've placed your order. Remember, this is only for the UK Mainland, if you would like us to send your printing elsewhere, please call the Helpdesk for a price. We do not ship to the USA.

You must upload your files as PDFs.

Please make sure that you read the artwork preparation guide before sending us your artwork.

If you need help with your artwork, we have experienced artworkers and very reasonable rates. Please call the helpdesk on 01452 751900 for a chat to discuss this.