Printing Guides
Practical guides to preparing files and choosing print options, written to Printster's own specifications — the papers we stock, the bindings we offer, the margin we hold and the rates we charge. Not general advice: the numbers here are the numbers your file is printed to.
- Book Creation Guide - Prepare Your Book for Print — How to prepare a book for print - page size, margins and gutter, resolution, colour, spine width and the cover spread, written to Printster's actual specifications.
- Best Paper GSM for Flyers — The most suitable paper GSM for flyers is typically 130 GSM to 170 GSM art paper.
- Binding Margin & Gutter Guide — Leave a minimum of 15 mm on the binding edge for spiral, comb or wiro binding, and at least 20–25 mm for perfect or hardcover binding.
- Colour Cover, B&W Inside Printing — Yes. Printster lets you print a full-colour cover with black-and-white interior pages.
- Colour vs Black & White Printing — Print in colour when images, charts, graphs or branding are central to your document's meaning.
- Duplex vs Single-Sided Printing — Choose double-sided (duplex) printing when you want to reduce page count and paper use — ideal for notes, reports and documents you will read.
- How to Choose a Binding Type — The right binding depends on how the document will be used, how long it needs to last, and whether it must lie flat.
- How to Format a Thesis for Binding — To format your thesis for printing and binding, set page margins of at least 1.5 inches on the binding edge and 1 inch on the other three sides.
- Large File (100MB+) Printing — Printster accepts files up to 100 MB directly via the upload page.
- Paper GSM Guide — GSM stands for grams per square metre — it measures paper weight and thickness. Higher GSM means thicker, sturdier paper.
- Scanned PDF Printing — Yes, Printster can print scanned PDFs and image-based documents. Upload your file as a PDF or JPG/PNG.
- Spiral vs Perfect Binding — Spiral binding uses a coil threaded through punched holes so the book opens flat and pages rotate fully, making it ideal for notebooks, manuals.
Calculators
Where a guide gives you a rule, a tool gives you the number for your own job.
- Book spine width calculator — spine width and the flat cover artwork size
- Printing price estimator — live rates, copy tiers and GST
- Binding cost calculator — per copy and whole job
- Paper size tool — every size in mm, cm and inches
- Binding type selector
- Delivery time checker
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Frequently asked questions
- What do these guides cover?
- File preparation and print decisions: paper weight, colour against black and white, duplex printing, margins and gutter, choosing a binding, formatting a thesis, printing from scans, and handling files over 100 MB. Every figure in them is Printster's own specification rather than a general rule.
- Where do I start if I am printing a book?
- The Book Creation Guide. It covers page size, margins, resolution, colour, spine width and the cover spread in one place, and links to the individual guides where you need more detail on one of them.
- Do you have calculators as well?
- Yes. The spine width calculator, price estimator, binding cost calculator, paper size tool, binding selector and delivery checker are all on the tools page, and they use the same rates and specifications as these guides.