Saddle Stitch Booklet Printing

Saddle stitch booklets are ideal for publications with 72 pages or less and are bound by inserting staples into the spine. Our booklets are printed in beautiful full color process ink with your choice of gloss or matte paper stocks.

Size: 5.5" x 8.5" or 8.5" x 11" (For different sizes, please request a quote here)

Inside Paper: 60# Uncoated Text, 70# Gloss Text, 80# Gloss Text, 80# Matte Text, 100# Gloss Text, or 100# Matte Text

Cover Paper: 80#, 100# Gloss or Matte Coated Cover

Printing: Full Color Throughout (4/4)

Mailing: Addressing, Prep, and Mail (Optional)

Artwork: Print-Ready PDFs Preferred

Delight Your Customers With Beautifully Printed Saddle Stitch Booklets

Use saddle-stitch booklets for manuals and catalogs, provide customers with informational booklets, or even tell the story of your company’s history. Your options with saddle-stitched booklets are endless.

For over 40 years, U.S. Press has offered high quality booklet printing at an affordable cost. Customers turn to us year after year for our expertise and world class service. When you begin a saddle stitched booklet printing project with us, we'll assist you every step of the way to make sure your booklets are a huge success.

About Saddle Stitch Binding

Saddle stitch booklets are the most popular option for small booklet and catalog printing. The binding method requires staples to be inserted into the spine of the booklet, making it a great choice for publications less than 100 pages. It's an economical choice for booklet printing that still offers a high quality, professional appearance.

Prior to ordering your booklets, it is important to understand how page counts and spreads work with this binding method. First, these booklets are printed on large sheets of paper that are folded in half. For example, a finished 8.5” x 11” booklet begins as 17” x 11" size sheets that are folded to the completed 8.5” x 11” size.

Each sheet of paper creates 4 sides, or pages, to the booklet. To understand this concept, let's take our 8.5” x 11” booklet as an example. You would start with a 17” x 11” sheet, which has two sides: a front side and a back side. When you fold this sheet in half, you will then have 4 sides, which we refer to as pages. The number of sheets that are needed to create an entire print booklet depends on the number of pages you would like your book to contain.

Because of this process of folding sheets to create 4 pages, saddle stitched booklets require page counts in increments of 4. Each “side” creates a page. Here's how you will need to accurately count your pages: First, begin with the front cover of your book as page 1. The front inside left side of the book is page 2, the inside right side is page 3, and so on until you reach the back cover of your book, which is the final page you will need to include in your count.

Need Mail Services for Your Booklets?

If you're looking to mail your booklets and catalogs, we can handle that, too. Every day, we complete the mailing of catalogs for our customers. Our services include mail list processing, addressing, sorting, bundling, and delivery to USPS. To add mail services to your booklets, simply select the mail service option on our quick pricing calculator.

After you place your order online, you will receive an email asking you to upload your mail list. At that time, our team will process your mail list to determine a final mailable count of addresses as well as the postage cost. Postage is an additional cost determined by standard USPS rates and will be invoiced separately from your online print order. If you have any questions about catalog and booklet mailings, please give us a call at 800-227-7377.

Saddle Stitch Booklets FAQ

What's the difference between each paper stock? What's the best to choose?

We offer uncoated, gloss, and matte paper stocks. For a shiny appearance, choose one of our gloss stocks. For a flat, matte appearance, choose one of our matte paper stocks. If you would like uncoated paper that you can easily write on, select our 60# uncoated text. 60# uncoated text has a texture similar to copy paper.

Next, decide on the weight of paper you would like. 70# text paper is very lightweight and cost-effective. 80# text paper is a lightweight option and is great for a wide variety of publications including newsletters and booklets that mail. 100# text paper is a thicker, more premium option. If you'd like to add a thicker cover (rather than self-cover), then you can select either 80# or 100# cover which will give your booklets a more upscale feel and will add a protective cover to your booklet.

What's the most common booklet size?

The most popular booklet sizes are 5.5" x 8.5" and 8.5" x 11". These sizes correspond to half-sheet size and full-sheet size. Although these are the most standard, other sizes are available. If you're looking for a different size, please request a quote.

How many pages can you saddle stitch?

You can saddle stitch booklets between 8 pages and 72 pages. We recommend booklets with more than 72 pages to be bound via another binding method, such as perfect binding.

What are the most common page counts?

It depends on the type of project that's being produced. Our customers that are using booklets to create a brochure-style pamphlet usually choose either an 8 page booklet or 16 page booklet as this type of project is quicker and easier to design and requires less information. These page counts are also common for booklets that will be mailed as we can soft-fold up to 16 pages so that it mails at the letter rate (rather than flat rate).

For quarterly or seasonal catalogs, a 24 page booklet is a highly popular option. For lengthier catalogs or magazine publications, page counts of 48 and above are most popular.

Are your booklets printed in full color?

Yes! For over 40 years, we have specialized in creating beautiful full color booklets, which means you can add as many colors as you like without affecting the cost. While our specialty is full color printing, we do offer black ink only as an option through our custom quotes.  

What does self-cover mean?

Self-cover simply means that the outside cover of your booklet is the same text weight paper as the inside pages. Because self-cover booklets are printed on the same paper stock (and therefore do not require an additional cover weight setup), they are a great option if you're looking for cheap booklet printing. Alternatively, if you'd like for the cover of your booklet to be thicker than the inside pages, we offer both 80# cover and 100# cover, in gloss and matte finishes, to provide your booklet with a more premium feel. Selecting a thicker cover adds significant visual appeal to your booklet order, and can add durability to your publication.

What is saddle stitching?

Saddle stitching is a type of binding method that involves inserting staples into the spine of the book. Sheets of paper are collated together in the order of your spreads, then folded in half and stapled together at the spine. Because each folded sheet of paper creates 4 pages, saddle-stitched booklets must be bound in 4 page increments beginning with 8 pages. Saddle stitch binding is a popular option for booklets, magazines, and publications less than 72 pages.

Is saddle stitching good for magazine publications?

Saddle stitching is a great option if your magazine is under 72 pages. If you're printing a larger publication, we recommend checking out our perfect bound booklets, which involve perfect binding instead and are best for thicker books with higher page counts.

Do you offer custom sized booklets and catalogs?

Yes, we do. While 8.5” x 11” and 5.5” x 8.5” booklets are the two most popular sizes for printing booklets, we can print a wide range of sizes that suits your particular design. If you're looking for a different size than our 8.5” x 11” or 5.5” x 8.5” options, please request a custom quote.

60# Uncoated Text: High quality, light text weight paper stock that is uncoated (similar to copy paper texture).
70# Gloss Text: High quality, light text weight paper stock with a gloss finish on both sides.
80# Gloss Text: High quality, medium text weight paper stock with a gloss finish on both sides.
80# Matte Text: High quality, medium text weight paper stock with a satiny, matte finish on both sides.
100# Gloss Text: High quality, heavy text weight paper stock with a gloss finish on both sides.
100# Matte Text: High quality, heavy text weight paper stock with a satiny, matte finish on both sides.
80# Gloss Cover: High quality, medium weight cover stock with a gloss finish on both sides.
80# Matte Cover: High quality, medium weight cover stock with a satiny, dull finish on both sides.
100# Gloss Cover: High quality, heavy weight cover stock with a gloss finish on both sides.
100# Matte Cover: High quality, heavy weight cover stock with a satiny, dull finish on both sides.

Document size: Same size as final trim size of piece

Bleed: Set your bleed to .125" on all sides

Safe Area: Set your margins to .125" and keep all important elements (logos, text, and images that do not bleed) within these margins

Resolution: 300 PPI for all images is strongly recommended for best print quality

File Type: PDFs are preferred

Uploading files: You can upload files directly to this product page by clicking "Upload Your File & Order Now". Or, if you prefer to send your files a different way, you can send files here.

If you need any help with creating your print ready artwork, please give us a call at 800-227-7377 or email us at info@uspress.com.

Proofing: After you place your order and upload your artwork, our prepress team will begin inspecting your files to ensure your document size, bleed lines, margins, image resolution, and more are correct in order for the best print quality. They will email you a soft proof (PDF) for your approval prior to printing. Most proofs are sent within 1 business day of order placement; more complex art files can sometimes take longer. Soft proofing is an easy way to see what your finished product will look like and make sure the content is correct. However, soft proofing is not intended for exact color matching. Every monitor displays color differently, and on backlit screens, colors may appear lighter than the actual colors contained in your files. If color matching is critical, please give us a call at 800-227-7377 to order a hard proof.

Production Time: Production time begins after proof approval and is the time required to produce your order before it ships. It is calculated in business days, starting at the next occurrence of 9:00 AM Eastern on the 1st business day after the proof is approved. U.S. Press is closed Saturdays, Sundays and all major holidays; thus, these days are not included in the production schedule.

Shipping Transit Time: Once production is complete, your order will ship out via the shipping method you select at checkout. All of our orders ship from our location in Valdosta, Georgia. The transit map below shows expected transit time from our plant in Valdosta to your location based on FedEx Ground shipping. Alternatively, you can select an expedited shipping method (FedEx Express Saver - 3 business day transit), FedEx 2nd Day Air (2 business day transit), or FedEx Overnight Standard (1 business day transit).

Save time by using our guideline templates. Our templates have been setup with proper bleeds and margins, assuring your print job turns out accurate. To download, select a booklet size and file type below.