Pacific Bindery Services
870 West Kent Avenue V6P 6Y6 Vancouver, BC, Canada

What is Square Backing? It is the squaring of the spine of the stitched book. Square backing can be done in-line to our stitcher or off-line. Square backing can make a stitched book look like it's been perfect bound (from the outside). It is an economical alternative to perfect binding, particularly for smaller quantities. The overall bulk of the stitched book is reduced by at least one third when square backed, ensuring that flat books are easy to handle, stack, pack and store.

What are some of the key design considerations for Lay-Flat books? 1). Grain direction needs to be parallel to the spine or the book will 'fight' laying flat. 2). A book needs to be not too thin or too narrow (thin and narrow books don't want to lay-flat).

When to use lay-flat binding? Lay-flat binding is an excellent choice for books that are used often and frequently and need a strong spine to handle the opening and closing; and that need to lay-flat for easy reading (books such as reference books, catalogs, cook books, etc. Lay-flat binding is also an excellent, cost effective alternative to mechanical binding for medium to large size runs (over 1000 books).

What is lay-flat binding? Inside text pages are bound to mull paper using PUR adhesive. The book block is then adhered to the inside front and back covers of the book by gluing the text block to the cover with an EVA hot melt side glue. This allows the pages to lay-flat without cracking the spine because the pages are not glued to the spine. For more binding options check out our website.

What is Polyurethane Reactive Glue (aka PUR)? PUR adhesives are pre-polymers which, when exposed to air humidity and/or paper humidity after application, undergo a cross-linking reaction. The pre-polymers 'wet-out' and penetrate paper extremely well, contributing to high adhesion and thus strong page pull results in perfect binding.