Gutter Creep Compensation in Booklet Printing
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Solution Overview
Problem
In print jobs, especially during booklet imposition, gutter creep or signature shift occurs, causing page content to be shifted off the edges due to increasing spine thickness, leading to visibility issues, particularly with heavy paper or numerous folded sheets.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that use a computer processor to determine sheet gutter values, calculate printable page areas, apply scaling factors to content, and position scaled content within these areas to maintain visibility and prevent edge shifting, employing a computer program product and image rendering device to execute these steps.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If gutter creep is not compensated, then the printing process is simple, but page content is shifted off the edges and becomes invisible
Solution Approach 1:
The system calculates and applies gutter creep compensation in advance during the layout phase. The processor determines the required shift amount based on the number of sheets and applies it to position page content correctly before printing, preventing content from being shifted off edges.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts positioning parameters based on the number of sheets in the print job. The processor calculates a shift value based on sheet count and applies different positioning parameters to each page according to its position in the sequence, compensating for increasing spine thickness.
2Reliability
If the spine thickness increases with more sheets, then the booklet structure is complete, but the content visibility at the edges deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies different compensation amounts to different pages based on their position. Pages closer to the spine require greater compensation than pages farther away. The processor calculates individual shift values for each page based on its position in the sequence, ensuring optimal content visibility for each local position.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method provide an improvement to publications with gutter creep that shifts page content to the edges of pages, if not off the page entirely. In an exemplary embodiment, a process may be triggered which determines a printable page area for pages of each respective sheet that will be printed on, based on the sheet gutter value for the page. A scaling factor is applied to the printable page area to produce a scaled printable area. The printed content may be scaled within the printable area by the scaling factor so that when the gutter creep value becomes larger and there is less printable area available, the content remains readable on the page.