Page Creep

What is creep in saddle-stitched booklets?

Creep, also known as page creep or binder’s creep, is the name for the incremental shift of pages that occurs in saddle-stitched booklets. Creep occurs because saddle-stitched booklets use folded pages inserted into each other to create a booklet. The thickness of each page pushes the next page out slightly, leading to the inner sheets extending further out of the book than the outer pages.

What determines how much creep a book has?

The amount of creep is determined by paper thickness and the number of pages in a book. Thicker paper pushes the following pages out more than thin paper. More sheets of paper lead to more pages being pushed and therefore more creep. For example, a saddle-stitched lookbook with more than 40 pages will be more impacted by creep than a saddle-stitched calendar with only a few pages.

How is creep fixed?

Unfortunately, creep is unavoidable. It occurs in all saddle-stitched booklets, even saddle-stitched direct mailers, zines, and catalogs. The effects of creep can be reduced by creating booklets with thinner paper or fewer pages. Thinner paper pushes pages out a smaller amount, making creep much less noticeable. Fewer pages also lead to less material pushing inner pages, meaning that creep will be less of an issue.

Creep can be fixed by shifting margins in nested pages. These shifts can compensate for the amount that the page will be pushed out due to creep. The extra material on the unbound edge can then be trimmed off without any worry of important content being cut off. Our imposition software and prepress team will adjust margins for you, so there is no need to worry about combating creep on your own!