How does the quality of Print On Demand and traditional offset printing compare?
For books consisting of type and lineart (black and white drawings or artwork with no graytones), pages printed by skilled printers on digital equipment are equal to or better than pages printed on offset equipment. For books with photographs or artwork in the text in black on uncoated paper, offset generally beats digital, though digital printers can be used to print grayscale photos on coated paper sections to almost match offset quality. Paperback binding is an operation utilizing similar binding machines, so offset and digital have equivalent inherent quality. For hardcover binding offset printers generally print on large sheets which are folded into signatures and the folding enables sewn bindings–although most offset-printed hardcover books are NOT sewn, but glued. Short run digital printers often offer adhesive fan binding, which was originally developed as a way to bind books for libraries. As libraries have high binding-quality standards, fan-binding is an excellent method of
