Margins Sizes

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Author Message a (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Monday, December 10, 2012 - 07:35 pm:    1) What size margins do you use for Chicago-screw bound project manual specs? 2) Do you use 'mirror margins'? William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS Senior Member Username: wpegues Post Number: 878 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Monday, December 10, 2012 - 07:48 pm:    Though we don't print many specs anymore, the pdf files we distributed are set up for printing. Since most want to print 2-sided, we use left and right margin identical. 1 inch, both sides. Top and bottom, 1/2 inch to the bottom or top edge of the header/footer. Any binding system will work fine with that, since we have no control over how they might be bound. William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS, SCIP Affiliate WDG Architecture, Washington, DC | Dallas, TX Jeffrey Wilson CSI CCS Senior Member Username: wilsonconsulting Post Number: 87 Registered: 03-2006 Posted on Monday, December 10, 2012 - 08:18 pm:    I have been using the same margins cited by William my entire practice & have never rec'd a complaint. It's simple & seems to work for any binding format. Robert E. Woodburn Senior Member Username: bob_woodburn Post Number: 18 Registered: 11-2010 Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2012 - 10:35 am:    We typically use 2-sided printing and concealed post binding on all specs for this office, and find that the traditional 1-inch margins all around waste space, but make text in the gutter harder to read. Consequently, we use mirror margins, with 1-1/2 inch in the gutter, and 1/2 inch outside, top and bottom. We typically prescribe the page format for our consultants, and ask them to add the extra blank pages for duplex printing (we typically use "page 1 of x" numbering, so the extra page is indeed blank -- no ironic "This page intentionally left blank" notice). Now if we could just get third party document providers (like geotech firms) who seem oblivious to binding issues to keep everything further away from the edge... J. Peter Jordan Senior Member Username: jpjordan Post Number: 525 Registered: 05-2004 Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - 06:07 pm:    In my experience, this can be controlled by the printer; on most printers, this is a setting that gets input after you stack in the "originals." If you try to anticipate how reproduction will be done, you usually will be wrong. Anne Whitacre, FCSI CCS Senior Member Username: awhitacre Post Number: 1282 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - 06:37 pm:    ... And I would say that the first thing I do with Chicago-screw bound manuals is take them apart and put them in a 3-ring binder. I've done as Bob Woodburn suggested with the wider gutter margin, but now agree with Peter -- this is a printing production problem, and we post the PDFs to the FTP site and whoever prints what can decide how they want to "finish" the document. Robert E. Woodburn Senior Member Username: bob_woodburn Post Number: 20 Registered: 11-2010 Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - 07:26 pm:    Well, it's easy enough to set up a gutter offset, and avoids having to coordinate print settings that I have no control over. If you use them frequently, you can always put post-bound specs in a 3-ring binder, and they're ok regardless of margins, but I'd guess most people won't do that. They just put the specs on a shelf or in a corner until they need to look something up... Richard L Matteo, AIA, CSI, CCS Senior Member Username: rlmat Post Number: 554 Registered: 10-2003 Posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2012 - 07:51 pm:    My philosophy is to keep it simple, especially when dealing with consultants who have to match your format. Like William, I keep the left & right hand margins at 1 inch. It generally works for most binding systems. I generally keep the top & bottoms at 1 inch, or adjust them to suit project-specific headers and footers. Like Anne, I do the same thing with specs that use binder-posts is to put them in a 3-ring binder. I hate binding posts, GBC bindings, and velo-bind is the worst