Good quality of printing and binding in latest delivery of 12 spiral bound copies of iami1 blogbook from Delhi online printer

Last updated on 16th June 2018

This time around Printonweb.in (Delhi based online printing service provider) gave a good quality delivery. None of the issues I reported in my previous unsatisfactory delivery in end May (see http://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2018/05/disappointing-quality-of-latest.html) were spotted in this delivery.

I ordered 12 spiral bound copies of iami1 blogbook on 4th June 2018 at a total cost inclusive of shipping of around Rs. 1075, which comes to slightly less than Rs. 90 per copy. The printing and binding got done by June 6th and handed over to DTDC for delivery. DTDC delivered yesterday - 13th June.

I called up Printonweb.in and conveyed my satisfaction with the delivery quality and told them that I would consider Printonweb.in for future such printing needs.

However there is one issue that I have faced with almost all Printonweb.in deliveries of the iami1 blogbook. And that relates to a compression of text on the printed pages with the margins around the text being slightly more than that I have specified in the PDF document. This issue is made more of a glaring one when one compares the Printonweb.in delivery with the Pothi.com printed book. The Pothi.com book has enlarged the text content resulting in smaller margins than what I had specified. But that works out well with Pothi.com binding quality. Note that earlier binding of this book was stapled binding that a Puttaparthi local printer had provided where the stapling required additional margin space on the left (and right too, I was told). These are the margins that are now used for the 26th April 2018 dated iami1 blogbook version which is what I have provided to Pothi.com as well as the Delhi online printer.

The pic below shows the Pothi.com enlarged print of text content next to Delhi online printer's compressed print of text content on same (or very similar) page size (A5 or very close to A5). Please excuse the lack of sharpness in the pic. Today is a cloudy day resulting in comparatively poor lighting for the pic which seems to have impacted its sharpness (in pics I took in the sit-out as well as in an inside room with tubelight on; the pic below is an inside room pic). The text print quality is much sharper than what the picture below shows.

[To open pic in higher resolution, right-click on pic followed by open in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.]

When I had last spoken to the Printonweb.in person about the compressed text problem he mentioned that it was because they print two A5 pages on one A4 sheet which is later cut into two A5 sheets, and that process introduces compression. I felt that if I try to push them on this front by suggesting alteration of parameters during printing, they may get upset. I should also mention here that when I use a Puttaparthi local printer to print and do spiral binding for the same blogbook, the text content is not compressed so much, even if it is not enlarged like what Pothi.com does. He too prints two A5 pages on one A4 sheet like the Delhi online printer.

Yesterday, I thought of exploring whether I could do something that Pothi.com seems to have done. They have enlarged the text content of the PDF file without impacting pagination, page numbering and table of contents. So they have not edited the PDF file content but managed to introduce some zoom factor for the text content per page.

I use an old copy of Microsoft Word (2007). Any attempt to modify the margin and/or font size in the Word document corresponding to the 26th April 2018 blogbook (inner contents excluding cover pages) may impact the pagination and page numbers in the table of contents. I did not want to disturb the pagination and page numbers in the table of contents. So editing the Word document option was out.

Exploring zoom/scale printing options in Word (print to PDF document) did not provide the desired results.

Then I explored zoom options in Foxit PDF reader (free download). I found a way to zoom text content to 105% and print a PDF with that zoomed text content. I intend to later provide in this post, the exact steps involved. [16th June 2018 Update: Exact steps are provided in this post of mine: Zooming/Enlarging text content of PDF file without editing using Foxit PDF Reader, http://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2018/06/zoomingenlarging-text-content-of-pdf.html, 15th June 2018. end-Update] 

Here's a link to that document: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1H7zmcBm-DViOzZY7Q1L8A31-1SLPbUCY.

And here's the link to the PDF document without zoom: https://iami1.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/20180426-bw-a5-who-am-i-i-am-i-n-god-n-science.pdf.

Next time I order a set of spiral bound iami1 blogbooks from PrintOnWeb.in I intend to use the 105% zoomed text content pdf file as the input for them. That may result in bigger text content size in final printed blogbook than it is now (in PrintOnWeb.in printed blogbooks).