What is the purpose of 1Book?

What is it constructed of?

What can it do? Which books can it print?

What do you mean by “In-House”?

Can it be also used in a print production environment as well?

What are the advantages of Model D?

 

What is the quality of the books being printed?

Why almost?

 

What do you consider as a “typical” book?

How long does it take to print a typical book?

How long does it take to bind a book?

Can you print the next book while the first one is being bound?

How many books can you produce in an 8 hours shift?

 

What are the possible 1Book configurations?

To which print engines you can hook the 1Book to?

What are the dimensions of 1Book?

What is the clearance needed for 1Book?

 

What is the cost of consumables needed for making a book?

Is it possible to lower this cost in the future?

What will be the cost of the 1Book system?

 

What about jogging? scoring? milling?

Which workflows does the 1Book support?

What about JDF i/f? UP3I?

 

What is the format of the book block and the cover?

Who is responsible for formatting the book and the cover properly?

Can you print any book size? Does the book have to fit to a certain size?

What are the minimum and the maximum number of pages in a book?

What do you mean by ”Large Type” printing?

Can you print books with color content?

What protection you provide for the cover?

Can you also make photo books/albums?

What about hard cover books?

 

Does 1Book need a dedicated operator?

What actions are needed while the system is running?

How do you plan to solve a possible queue while working in a bookstore environment?

 

 

What is the purpose of 1Book?

1Book™ model D is PSik’s 2^nd generation Books-on-Demand (BOD) system for In-House production. It can be considered as a “long tail” implementation for books.

 

 

What can it do? Which books can it print?

It prints and binds paperback perfect-bound books in black & white/color* content and full color cover. (*depends on the print engine connected to the 1Book system)

What do you mean by “In-House”?

The 1Book system has the size of a full-blown copier and it is planned to work in an office/store environment. Therefore, it can produce books at places like bookstores, publishing houses, libraries and in the future – probably also as a kiosk type. Printers, distribution centers, universities and CRDs may benefit from the ability to print or bind single/low number of book copies in an efficient and economical way.

Can it be also used in a print production environment as well?

Yes. 1Book model D has unique hybrid on-line/off-line/near-line capabilities and as such, it can nicely fit into a production environment where low-to-medium volume of book production is required (see “advantages for print production”).

What are the advantages of Model D?

1Book model D has some significant advantages over the previous model A:

Quality:

·         Improved binding quality due to additional scoring and an improved gluing system. Some limited jogging capability was added as well as some binder improvements.

Performance:

·         Full pipeline: printing of the next book can be done while binding the current book

·         Faster binding

·         Faster cover printing

Cost:

·         More economical cover printing

Flexibility:

·         Open system - new design enables connection to a wider range of book-block and cover print engines

·         Enhanced off-line binding capability

Maintenance:

·         Access to the system was simplified to be from the front only

·         Overall improved reliability

·         Reduced user access needed due to larger ink cartridges and trash tray

 

 

What is the quality of the books being printed?

The books printed by the system have “almost” the same quality and "look & feel" of conventional books, sometimes better.

Why almost?

Since the covers are printed using only CMYK colors – we have no metallic colors or embossing effects, for example. If covers are printed off-line by a system with such capabilities, we can probably utilize them.

 

What do you consider as a “typical” book?

According to the latest Interquest survey, a typical trade book produced digitally has a size of 6" x 9" and contains between 200 and 300 pages (we take 250 pages as the reference number).

How long does it take to print a typical book?

Between 5-7 minutes, depending on the print engine used to print the book block. The HP 9050dn can print constantly at 50 PPM, so a 250-page book will be printed in 5 minutes and then binding takes another two minutes. A 75 PPM printer will print the same book in less than 3.5 minutes, so 5 minutes for the first book and 3-4 minutes for the following books seem realistic.

How long does it take to bind a book?

Approximately 2 minutes.

Can you print the next book while the first one is being bound?

Yes, Model D has this pipeline capability.

How many books can you produce in an 8 hours shift?

Printing productivity depends heavily on the print engine connected. With 1Book basic configuration we recommend on making about 35 books a day. Using more production-oriented engines can bring this number to 100 and up.

Binding productivity depends only on the 1Book finishing unit itself and we estimate the unit can bind 25-40 books per hour.

What are the possible 1Book configurations?

1Book configurations	Main Print Engine
Off-line/near-line	none
Basic	HP 9050dn (50 PPM B&W)
Pro(duction)	75+ PPM B&W
Color	Hybrid, 50 PPM color, 75+ PPM B&W

To which print engines you can hook the 1Book to?

1book was designed with flexibility in mind and the link between the main book block printer and the finishing unit is quite loose. At this stage we focus on the HP9050dn as the main engine for the basic configuration (we have made tests also with the Kyocera FS-9520dn). From our web site you can download a movie of 1Book model A working together with a 75 PPM device (Xerox WorkCenter 275).

What are the dimensions of 1Book?

The finishing unit size (without the book block printer) is 110 cm x 80 cm (depth) x 120 cm (height) / 3.6’ x 2.6’ x 4’

What is the clearance needed for 1Book?

Typical clearance, together with the HP 9050dn as a book-block printer is 200 cm by 255 cm (6.5’ x 8.35’), which is about 54 square feet or 5.1 square meters

 

What is the cost of consumables needed for making a book?

The estimated cost of producing a typical 250 page book is (in $US):

B&W Book Block:

·         B&W consumables - roughly 0.6 cents per page (a total of $1.50 for a 250 page book)

·         Paper – roughly $1.00

 

Color Cover:

·         Ink - roughly $0.50

·         Cover paper – roughly $0.25

 

Glue

So the total cost is less than $3.50

Is it possible to lower this cost in the future?

Yes. Using higher-end print engine with lower cost-per-page, custom size paper, etc. should bring the price down to $3.00 and below.

What will be the cost of the 1Book system?

When it reaches high-volume serial manufacturing, the estimated cost of the 1Book basic configuration should be less than $50,000/ €40,000, of which roughly $5,000 is the cost of the main print engine (HP 9050dn with additional 2,000 page input tray).

The cost of the Pro (Production) configuration depends on the print engine chosen.

What about jogging? scoring? milling?

1Book model D has limited jogging capability built-in into the accumulator. It supports scoring (the cover can be scored in 2 or 4 locations). We do not use milling as it seems that our gluing method provide good results without the need to mill (and get rid of the paper dust which results from milling).

Which workflows does the 1Book support?

There are several possible workflows:

·         On-line (i.e. at a bookstore).
Upon selection of a book from the available title list, the 1book system prints  the book block and the cover in parallel, then binds and trims the book,

·         Off-line (i.e. at a production center).
In this mode, the user already has a pre-printed book block or a pre-printed cover or both. The 1Book system can print the complemented component (if needed) and binds the book as in the case of on-line mode.

·         Near-line.
This working mode assumes some information transfer regarding the book (using, for instance, barcode or JDF).

What about JDF i/f? UP3I?

PSik is active in JDF development as part of its activity in the graphic arts market, so JDF capability can be added at a later stage, upon market request. We have no plan to address UP3I at this stage. 

What is the format of the book block and the cover?

The book-block and the cover should come in separate, properly formatted PDFs. Formatting guidelines will be published by us at a later stage.

Who is responsible for formatting the book and the cover properly?

The publisher or the content provider. We plan to add some proofing tools to assist in the formatting process.

Can you print any book size? Does the book have to fit to a certain size?

Book size can be any size between the minimum size (which is 115 mm x 180 mm / 4.5” x 7”) and the maximum size (205 mm x 290 mm / 8” X 11.4”)

What are the minimum and the maximum number of pages in a book?

Minimum pages – 50. Maximum pages – 700.

What do you mean by ”Large Type” printing?

1Book can rather easily scale up books in order to make the reading more comfortable for a wider range of people. The scaling is done by using a scale factor during printing: i.e. the content is not re-formatted, but the pages are printed to a larger size. If the book was not scanned and since this is basically PDF printing, quality is not affected by this scaling and the result is very pleasing (we believe). The “Large Type” mode does not affect the printing speed as the number of pages is unchanged. However, the use of B&W consumables is somewhat higher.

Can you print books with color content?

Basically – yes. If a color engine is hooked to the 1Book, we can also print book content in color.  We are not sure whether currently this can be economically justified, but this is a different issue. Color books can also be bind in off-line or near-line modes. 

Can you print books like "Harry Potter"?

If you mean printing bestsellers – yes, we can, But we think that 1Book is more suitable for printing "backlist" books rather than bestsellers where good old offset printing is the more efficient and economical way of printing. 1Book is more suitable for Books-on-Demand (BOD) and customized production (the "Long Tail" concept).

Can you use color inserts?

We believe it is feasible – it requires some software manipulations and good will, but yes, it can be done.

Can you create a cover on-line?

Yes – the 1Book software has basic capability of creating covers on-line, based on the first page content merged with a pre-defined template for the back cover and the spine.

What protection you provide for the cover?

At this stage – none. However, improved cover durability can be achieved by using appropriate paper for the cover (like the coming ColorLok papers), by using pigment-based ink jet printers and by future options for lamination or coating.

Can you also make photo books/albums?

Coated papers, as used in photo book production, create some challenge in binding and we are not ready for it yet. However, it may be that 1Book, with its zero set-up time binding, can simplify the manual intensive process of making photo albums.

What about hard cover books?

Sorry – no.

 

Does 1Book need a dedicated operator?

No.

What actions are needed while the system is running?

Approximately twice a day: adding paper for the book block printing – every 15-20 books (assuming 3,000 sheet input capacity) and removing waste at the same time.

Approximately every two days - adding paper for the cover printing, adding glue.

Once in a while - replacing toner, replacing ink cartridges.

How do you plan to solve a possible queue while working in a bookstore environment?

There are several possible solutions:

·         Model D has pipeline capability, meaning: you can start printing the second book while the first book is still bind.

·         Adding more terminals allow customers to browse without occupying the main production unit with lengthy browsing.

·         If the issue of long queue is constant, the bookstore might switch to a higher productive print engine or it might be the time to have a second system.

·         Customers might send requests to print books in a remote mode (for example, from home via the web and during the night) and come to pick up the book during store opening hours.

·         Off-line and queue management – once the store administrator is being alert for a possible long queue, he/she may re-direct some books with larger page count to be printed off-line on a fallback printer in order to relief the queue. These books can be later on bind off-line on the 1Book system (since binding is usually shorter than printing and an additional printer is being used, the queue may be shortened considerably).

·         Yes – a coffee corner where you can drink a good coffee (or tea) while your book is being printed might be a good idea.