What Capacity Binder Do I Need?

This is a question that comes up a lot and it’s pretty important. You can design beautiful cover art that really tells your story, but at the end of the day, if your content pages don’t fit …this is all a moot issue.

The best way to determine the correct capacity is to mock-up a complete set of the binder contents.

At this point, it doesn’t matter if your text is still the rough draft or if you’re still waiting for some drawings or final photos. What IS important is that you have the correct number of sheets that are going in the binder. They should be on the correct weight paper. You should also have the correct number if indexes inserted. Any brochures, sell sheets or color charts should also be in place. This contents set should be the same thickness as your completed, proofed and printed text set will be.

Get an assortment of binders to try out your text set in. Different capacities, round rings, Dee rings etc.

What about room for growth? Are there going to be addendums sent later? Are there going to be additional products and binder sections added later? Do the customers need room to insert their own pages, worksheets etc? If so, you may need to go up one size on the capacity.

Once you have the correct binder size picked out please submit: ring type, ring measurement, spine width and width of the front panel. In the world of retail store binders the sizing parameters can be confusing. With the measurements mentioned earlier we will be sure that we are all talking about the same size product.