With more and more organizations creating their own bound documents, making your own presentations stand apart from the rest is more important than ever. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at thermal soft covers to see how they work and to learn about how they can be used to add a professional touch to any document.
The Basics
Thermal soft covers are used for perfect binding, a popular binding style that uses heat-activated adhesives to create an attractive, uncluttered bind. Perfect binding is commonly used on both soft cover and hardcover books, as well as magazines, because it allows for easy stacking and storage (unlike other binding styles which tend to have a bulkier finish). Since the documents are secured with glue, no punching is required to achieve a secure bind.
Thermal Soft Covers
Like traditional binding covers, thermal soft covers are made from paper or clear plastic (or a combination thereof) and are available in a variety of finishes. Instead of having separate front and back covers, thermal soft covers come as a pre-scored, solid piece (similar to a file folder) that has a strip of thermally-activated adhesive down the center. To create a bind, simply place your document within the cover and insert the cover into your thermal binding machine (following the manufacturer’s instructions). Because the covers are made as single pieces, they are available in different spine sizes that are specifically designed to accommodate the thickness of your report. They are offered with spines as small as 1/16” (capable of holding 1-10 pages of standard 20 lb. paper) and 1-3/4” (capable of holding 280-350 pages of standard 20 lb. paper).
Customization
There are three standard styles of soft thermal covers – solid, window-cut, and transparent front. Solid covers are made from a single sheet of paper, and are available in a wide variety of textures and colors. Window-cut covers are identical to solid covers in style and design, however they have a small window cut out of the front cover that allows for a portion of the text or artwork from your title page to be visible. Transparent front covers have a paper back and a clear plastic front, which enables the entire title page to show through without requiring the reader to open the book.
One of the best features of this style of cover is that it can be customized in a number of ways, which makes it great for promotional documents, catalogs, pricelists, tax reports, or even yearbooks and photo books. They can be screenprinted, foil stamped, embossed, and offset printed, which gives you (or your organization) complete control over the look and feel of the finished book. When you combine the available customizations with the wide selection of cover stocks and styles, the possibilities are practically limitless!
In Review
Perfect binding is a great way to achieve a book-like finish on almost any document. It creates a slim spine that is stackable and easy to store (unlike other conventional binding methods). Thermal soft covers are used in conjunction with a perfect binding machine, and come with thermally-activated glue pre-applied. Since they already have the adhesive in place, you simply have to insert your document into the cover and place it within the thermal binding machine to create your bind. Thermal soft covers are available in many attractive colors and textures, and can even be customized with screenprinting, foil, embossing, or offset printing to create your ideal book.
If you are looking for a way to make your presentations, reports, and even photo books look stand out, then you’ll definitely want to consider binding with thermal soft covers. Not only are they among the most professional-looking binding covers, but they also require very little effort to use. With almost endless options for customization, you can design custom thermal soft covers to fit all of your binding needs.