by Milt Vine
Greetings. I'm delighted to take on the role of "postpress expert" for Printing Journal readers. I look forward to sharing my thoughts-both of the tactical and the strategic variety-about how your bindery partners can help you serve your customers better.
My first column concerns a topic near and dear to my heart, and one that makes life easier for readers everywhere-tabbing and indexing. My message: don't pass up this work. It could add another competitive advantage to your firm's arsenal.
Like paper clips and the air we breathe, tabs and indexes are taken for granted. Their simple appearance is deceiving and gives no hint of the planning that goes into their design and production. They may be small, but they make loose-leaf binders, reference books and directories some of the most enduringly practical ways for people to quickly get to the information they need.
So, let's take a close-up look at the finer points of tabbing and indexing. Here's an overview of the various products you can incorporate into your customers' projects.
The basic tab. Most of us first encountered that perennial favorite, the humble die-cut tab, in the 3-ring binders we used in school. As grown-ups, we've benefited from tabs used in training and seminar manuals. These little guys also appear in mechanically-bound cookbooks, directories, instructional texts and some software manuals.
The extra strength tab. What if your client's products need to withstand heavy usage? Consider using mylar to strengthen them. Mylar is a transparent polyester film made in thin sheets. Similar to cellophane wrap but much, much stronger, it is applied over pre-printed tabs or adhered in strips to the binding edge of sheets for reinforcement. It prevents the tabs from curling and smudging before their time or pages from tearing out. Mylar comes in 16 colors, including clear.
Tab sets can use a single color mylar or any combination of colors. In fact, color-coding is one of mylar's popular features. Color-coding improves the readability of manuals, reports and catalogs by dividing information into easily-identifiable sections for quick reference.
Because tabs are primarily used in mechanical-bound books, including 3-ring notebooks, reinforcing the spine with mylar is commonplace. The stress caused by the binding mechanism often causes pages to rip from the binding. Usually a 1/2" or 3/4" strip of mylar along the binding edge of a sheet is adequate protection. After the mylar is applied to sheets, they are then punched or drilled for binding. The application of mylar involves 330-degree heat-an important consideration when selecting ink and paper stock. Non-heat resistant ink will smear and leave you with unreadable tabs.
The indexing alternative. An alternative to tabs, indexing has probably been around just as long. Indexing is generally used in high-volume, high page-count publications and is usually performed by printers and postpress houses in the publishing industry. Since it is so specialized, I won't go into much detail. However, here are few things you should know.
The most widely-used indexing method is called thumb indexing, created by cutting rounded notches into the face of the book from head to tail and front to back. The bible and, yes, dictionaries, offer great examples of thumb indexing.
A variation on the theme is stepped indexing. This process involves die-cutting a series of indexes into the body of a bound and trimmed book. In the old days, this was performed manually. Productivity improved with the introduction of indexing machines. Today, a microprocessor-controlled machine can produce electronically supported indexing. With this equipment, which can be programmed for up to 63 separate steps-including two-color printing of the index-step indexing is a quick and cost-effective way to divide and organize a book.
The advantages of step indexing over tabbing are obvious-less handwork, faster set-up and no protruding elements to be torn or bent. Indexing can be a viable-and equally user-friendly-solution for customers turned-off by the special considerations associated with the use of tabs in adhesive-bound books.
Tabs on demand. When Xerox introduced 5090s and then the DocuTech several years ago, many commercial printers embraced the on-demand technology. Due to the relatively low cost-compared to a press, anyway-some even established on-demand operations as an independent adjunct to their commercial work. Quick printers, too, picked up on the digital publishing phenomenon, adding 5090s and DocuTechs to their equipment rosters.
In many cases, those who established themselves in black-and-white, on-demand publishing have found that these operations have become their own profit centers, serving a range of industries. Manuals for the software industry, training materials for education and cookbooks for publishers are just a few of the products for which this technology is ideal. And what do these products have in common? They're all likely candidates for tabbing.
My firm works with a number of on-demand printers for whom we regularly supply blank tabs. According to them, they prefer purchasing tabs from us rather than OEMs for many reasons: We're more familiar with their clients' tabbing needs and, so, will supply the right tabs for projects. We pre-drill the tabs to customer specifications. We package the tabs in cartons, not boxes, which is more convenient for high-volume production. Our prices are competitive. And we'll deliver on short notice.
I hope I've given you enough reasons to call your finisher the next time you need tabs. Bottom line, you should be using us as a resource for more than just the obvious binding and finishing needs. We can make a difference in both your budget and your deadline. But more about that in columns to come.
Milt Vine is president of Seattle Bindery, a post-production house specializing in custom index tabbing in addition to bindery services including plastic spiral, Wire-O® and perfect binding; folding; stitching; scoring; perforating and trimming services for the trade. You can reach Milt at 206/682-2558 ©1997, Seattle Bindery. Reprinted from Seattle Bindery Printing Journal Column #1, August, 1997.