Choosing the Right Binding Technology

There are many different bindings available on the market for your documents. Deciding which one is right for your document requires information that is sometimes hard to find.

There are binding machines that deliver products of outstanding quality a few at a time and binding machines that churn out hundreds of products per hour with generic quality.

You need to know several facts before you can decide which one of the many available bindings is right for you. Several different issues will determine what bindings you choose. Document size, length, width, and number of pages will play a dominant role in your choice of bindings. You also have to think about the type of document that you want to produce, its purpose, where you place it, and more. 

Often, there are multiple factors that come into play when making a decision about your binding needs.  For example, budget may be important, but so is reliability.  Or you may need to mail your documents, but you also want a binding style that is, well, stylish.  Other potential needs might include ease of use, equipment durability, equipment speed, overall performance, supply costs, number of sheets, as well as ongoing support.  This is a brainstorming step where you list all of your project needs.

Once you have answered these questions, you can begin looking at different bindings options. There are many different bindings to choose from, and they each have characteristics that lend themselves more to certain industries and uses than to others. 

Plastic comb bindings are one type. This binding is a form of spiral binding, and allows the user to easily add or remove pages from a document. It is widely available in a number of different sizes, lengths, and colors. 

Plastic coil bindings are another kind of binding. Plastic Coils come in numerous colors to match any color binding cover you may use . Another option, UltraBind strips, are a top grade, permanent binding option made from a high-grade polymer. You can also use aluminum screw posts to bind documents that you need to frequently access.

Binding machines are manufactured in electric, semi-automatic, and manual models. Beyond the issue of manual versus electric, binder performance is determined by the variety of binding supplies, effort required to produce a document set, the number of sheets that can be bound in one effort, and the number of binds that can be achieved in a given period of time. Some binders only bind while others punch and bind. Some binding technologies allow the document set to be edited.