Paper from the Bookbinder's Point of View Paper from the Bookbinder's Point of View Paper is the base of all printing and binding, the canvas on which every image appears. Just as the image to be printed will affect the type of paper chosen, the bindery requirements of your job must also be taken into account.
Paper is made up of fibers.
These fibers most often come from wood, but cotton, linen, and other materials are also used. Research continues into alternative sources of fiber for paper, including bamboo, hemp, and rice straw. These two characteristics are important to us because of what we do to the paper. In the process of binding a single book, we squeeze your paper between knurled rollers, grab it with mechanical fingers or suction, mash it in a hydraulic press, heat it, wet it, and apply up to six different kinds of glue to it. Scoring, folding, sewing, gluing, and cutting are all influenced by the characteristics of the paper, sometimes radically.