I'm going to teach you guys about book ink. Traditionally there are 4 colors that make up the visual spectrum on the printed page (cyan, magenta, yellow and black). These 4 colors are used to create an almost infinite number of other colors. Now, sometimes you might have a 1 color book, a 2 color book, a 4 color book, or a 5+ color book.
Rarely do you have a 3 color book.

The 1 color book is almost always black ink only. The 2 color book is almost always black and a PMS color. A PMS color is a preselected ink that is not part of the CMYK process. There are little paint chips that you can use to pick your color. The only problem is that when you build pages you have to use the CMYK process, and the swap one of the other colors for the pantone color. Problems can arise with this.

A 4 color book is the traditional "pretty" colored text book. These are typically more expensive and high profile than 2 color books, but they are usually easier to process.

You use plates for each color so one page might have 4 plates.

A 5 color book is an annotated instructions edition where you can make a plate with the answers only. The plate can be switched on and off depending on whether you are printing the student version or the teacher book version. This "fifth color" is often called anno.

A 5 color book can also be a regular 4 color book with a pantone color added for consistency or emphasis. An example of this would be a Time Magine cover where they have a special "red" ink that must be perfect. So it's manufactured and layed on top of the regular 4 colors.

I always thought it was just red.

:has worked in printing for 9 years:

I've worked as a print designer for 12. We should team up.

I didn't know that...

Whenever I hear the term PMS color I still giggle. I work for a publisher but my dad has worked in printing for a gazillion years. It surprises me how little people know about book production, seeing as how almost everyone uses them in their lives.

You should do RGB next. Maybe I'll talk about "bleeds".

This thread is bound to suffer from misreg.

and the alignment on recto pages seems to be off

Currently works in printing!

This thread looked fine on the blueline. Something happened in bindery.

So we are making a book that is basically a 3 ring binder, a text block individually shrinkwrapped in the middle of the binder, and then the entire thing shrink wrapped around it.

Well this printer says they can't shrink wrap the binders because the plastic sleeve on the outside is melting from the heat. We said, uh turn the head down or speed up the conveyor belt so it doesn't cook.

They still can't get it to work. No one here has ever heard of something so stupid.

graphic designer

The line is slowly being drawn in the sand. Posters are forming ranks on one side or the other. The Red Mosquito Designer/Printer War of 2006 will soon begin ....

do you what a hairline rule is? Do you know that you AREN'T supposed to use them?

do you use mostly Illustrator?

I lulzed

If we weren't supposed to use them, why are they available to us? Printers need to get with the program and print what the experts give to them. The times they are a changing, and let's face it, hairline rules are becoming the professional standard of line usage.

Heh, let's not forget who's making end product here bucko.

this thread stinks.