Binding Your Manual

You have many options for binding—“perfect” bind (like a book), and a variety of binding mechanisms such as fasteners and spiral wires.

You should choose what you think your audience would prefer, but here are my ideas that work:

- Spiral binding is professional, classy and makes it easy to open the manual fully.

- Spiral wires come in plastic or plastic coated wire. Full plastic looks cheap and comes apart after a lot of use. Plastic coated wire is sturdy and gives your manual a finished look. They cost almost the same as the inferior plastic strip.

- 8½” x 11” format seems to be what works best as a manual. It’s because it’s the format that looks least like a book. The 8½” x 11” format looks like—a manual. Another format I’ve seen and liked is 8½” x 5½”. It’s close in size to a standard book but the spiral binding makes them a little more unique.

- Never use a three-ring binder. A three-ring binder looks like something anyone could do and it doesn’t look much like a manual. They’re also used commonly at seminars and you don’t get big bucks by looking “common.” They’re bulky, expensive, hard to ship, and pages eventually fall out. They’re also pretty hard to manage on an airplane or out by the pool. Plus, where do you store a bulky three-ring notebook? I’ve only got one shelf in my bookcase where binders fit and they’re way too big for hanging files.

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