100 A5 Saddle-Stitched Booklets Printed the Same Afternoon, With the Missing Bleed Fixed In-House

The order: 100 A5 booklets, quoted, accepted and paid inside an hour

The quote went out at 12:21 on Tuesday 22 September 2026: 100 booklets at A5, saddle stitched, 8 pages each, full colour on 170gsm. The customer opened it at 12:42, accepted it at 13:08 and paid online at 13:09, 49 minutes after it was sent. In the customer’s files the job was called a brochure: a saddle-stitched brochure and a stapled booklet are the same product, and short company and product brochures like this one are covered on our brochure printing page.

An 8-page saddle-stitched booklet is two sheets, each printed on both sides, folded in half, nested and stapled through the fold. One hundred copies is 200 folded sheets and 800 printed pages. The quote lists one paper weight, 170gsm, for every page; the weights we keep in stock are in the guide to paper stocks we hold. The cover of the booklet carries the date 23 September 2026, the day after the order. The work was booked as same day booklet printing, the kind of job our same day printers page is about: printed and finished on the Tuesday, for collection from our London print shop.

What happens when booklet artwork arrives as spreads, or without bleed?

On this order the file had to be right before anything could go on press, and it took three exchanges to get there. At 13:38, 29 minutes after paying, the customer sent a PDF laid out as spreads, two pages side by side, with bleed and crop marks, and asked whether the layout was correct. For our booklet workflow we ask for single pages in reading order, and arrange them onto the sheets for printing and folding here. At 13:49 a second file arrived, this time as single pages.

We acknowledged the second file at 14:00, and the customer asked at 14:07 what time the booklets would be ready to pick up. At 14:13 our check of the new file found the problem: the single pages had crop marks but no bleed, while the earlier spreads had carried it. We wrote back to say so and asked for single pages with bleed. At 14:36 the customer replied that the designer could not be reached, and asked whether we could do something about it ourselves.

At 14:40 we took the file on and confirmed the job was still scheduled for that day. Silver Image Print & Signs had the 100 A5 booklets marked ready in London at 16:36, 1 hour 56 minutes after that reply and 3 hours 26 minutes after payment.

Can a printer fix missing bleed on a same-day booklet?

On this order we did, and the booklets were ready the same afternoon. That matches what our pages on brochures and on file formats already say about artwork: we check bleed, page order and fonts before press, and where a fix is small, we usually just make it. As general advice rather than a record of how this file was handled, the two problems on this order are the two that the booklet pages warn about. Artwork supplied as spreads has to be taken apart before the pages can be arranged for folding, and artwork without bleed leaves nothing to trim into, so a white hairline can show at the cut edge.

The file that avoids both is a print-ready PDF of single pages in reading order, with 3 mm bleed on anything that runs to the edge and crop marks offset by the same amount. Our saddle-stitched booklet range runs from 8 to 64 pages, including the cover, in multiples of four; this order used the minimum of eight. The guide on which file format to send for printing sets out the export settings, and the guide to next day booklet printing in London covers page counts, bindings and what the file needs when the deadline is tight.

Saddle stitching was the right binding here because the booklet was short. A longer document that has to open flat is a different job: the wire-bound AGM documents case study records 90 documents of 54 and 86 pages bound with wire binding instead.

From quote to collection: the timeline

Every time below is London time (BST), taken from the order record and our mailbox. Elapsed times are calculated from timestamps that include seconds.

The guide to same day or next day printing sets the two timings side by side, and the guide to urgent print jobs in London covers what to send for urgent booklet printing when the deadline is the next morning.

In short: Silver Image Print & Signs produced 100 same-day saddle-stitched booklets in London, A5 with 8 pages each on 170gsm, fixed the missing bleed in-house when the designer could not be reached, and had the order marked ready 3 hours 26 minutes after payment.

Booklets handed out at a meeting or a trade event are one part of what we print for events and conferences.

What to tell us when you order saddle-stitched booklets

For A5 stapled booklets like this order, these are the details that let us quote and plan accurately:

• The finished size and the page count. Here it was A5 and 8 pages. The count must divide by four, and the cover counts towards it.
• How many copies. This order was 100.
• The paper. This booklet was 170gsm throughout; say if you want a heavier cover.
• The file, as single pages with 3 mm bleed. Pages 1, 2, 3, 4 in reading order, not spreads. If that is not what you have, send what you have and say so.
• Whether the designer can be reached. If the file needs a change and nobody can make it, tell us early, as this customer did.
• When you need it, and whether you will collect. This order was printed the same afternoon and collected the next morning.