If you want to add a perfect bound, completely professional look to your business documents, you may want to consider thermal binding. This type of bookbinding uses no hole punches or inserted spines, wires, or combs. By carefully choosing a cover, you can create documents so professional they actually look like they were produced commercially. In addition to its professional look, it is also quick and simple to use.

When it comes to speed and ease of use, thermal binding is at the front of the pack. To use thermal binding, you insert your pages into the pre-made cover. Next, you place the cover and document into the thermal binding machine and wait for the document to cool.

Choosing just the right cover will help your documents send the perfect message to your potential clients and employees. A very popular type of thermal binding cover is a linen-look back cover with a clear cover for the front, also called a utility cover. This type of cover is attractive looking and bargain priced. For those requiring a more sophisticated look for company publications, imprinted covers, window covers, and special stock covers are popular choices. Some organizations opt for top of the line professionally printed custom covers to create a truly unique look.

Since you must use a pre-made cover for thermal bound documents, you should be careful to choose an appropriately sized cover for your presentation or report. It's even more critical to do so if you use a custom cover since special orders can take several weeks to arrive. Fortunately, covers for this type of binding are available in sizes from 1/16" to 2" in thickness.

To ensure the strongest possible binding for your thermal bound document, you should ensure the pages are perfectly aligned so they will each come into contact with the glue. You can also tap the document (spine side down) on the table to further ensure each page is touching the glue.

For low-volume presentations or reports, you can create your own thermal binding covers by printing the cover as a single sheet and creating a spine using a scoring tool. Next, add a strip of thermal binding glue and bind as usual. Be patient. This technique may take a little practice to master. Plan on a few trial runs, and you'll soon be a pro.

If you would like the look of a hard cover for your thermal bound documents, hard covers are available. These lend a sense of permanence and professionalism to your documents. If you want to use hard covers, you will need to use a binding machine with adjustable temperature controls. Hard covers are adhered using a higher temperature than other covers. In addition to a higher temperature, a special hard cover crimping tool is also essential to properly finish the hard covers. If your machine does not allow you to adjust the temperature, you can use your machine to bind hard covers by running hard bound documents though a few times to make the glue properly adheres to the pages.

Thermal binding is an easy and professional document binding solution. Thermal binding allows for easy customization regardless of the number of copies needed.