Printing Thumb Tabs

[Bodvar Bjorgvinsson]

On 4/19/06, donandjudy1 <donandjudy1 at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Hi, folks:
>
> With the help of several stalwart frameusers, I successfully created thumb
> tabs along the edge of a version of my fixit book.
> However, my inkjet printer won't print close enough to the edge for the tabs
> to "bleed." It will create the tabs with the text which can be viewed by
> flipping through the book sideways, but they won't show when the book is
> closed.

Some Inkjets are said to be able to print to the edges, but fot the
bleed to show in a closed book, the printing must really go over the
edge, so to speak. I have never used the "print to the edge" option,
so I cannot say much more about it, but I would suspect that repeated
printing over the edge would cause some mess and a serious cleaning
job.

>
> And I know that laser printers require even larger blank margins than
> inkjets. So, perhaps this option shouldn't be offered to the on-line
> customer without a warning. Or perhaps the tabs should be reformatted to
> represent what can be realistically printed. Pity.

Well, using Inkjets or lazers, you are usually printing on a Letter
size (216x279) mm, or in Europe, A4 (210x297mm), and these sizes are
not optimal for printing books. Suitable sheets are more than 8x
bigger than that, and are cut after printing to printing marks. Letter
size usually ends up loose leaf, and then you can use dividers instead
of bleeding tabs.

>
> I have a vague recollection that, in the recent days when I was ferreting
> out the tab formatting problem, someone wrote about the printing
> difficulties of bleeding tabs, suggesting larger paper and cutting it
> afterwards. But I can't find that e-mail. Furthermore, this doesn't seem
> practical when one considers that most folks can only print on longer (14"),
> not wider paper.

I may be one of the guilty ones here, but refer to my comment above.

>
> Perhaps bleeding tabs can only be handled by professional printers and
> therefore included only in a hard bound version, not a print at home PDF.
> True or false? Any suggestions?

Mainly true.

However... I am guessing from what you write that you are using full
Letter size as page size in FM. If you really need that size, there is
a possibility that your printer takes envelopes bigger than Letter
size.
You might try to find a way to set the printer to that size and then
fake it to print on same size but single thickness (20-25lb). This
would mean that you would have to go to a printshop or someone that
can cut a suitable paper to the envelope size. You would preferably
print the fm file to ps, setting the distiller/pdf-maker to this size
and using printers marks. Then you would have to distill to pdf and
print from there. This method, as you may have read many times over on
the list, is a very sure fired way of getting the final results right.

>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> ~ Don Spencer
> _______________________________________________
>

Hope this helps some.

Bodvar Bjorgvinsson