﻿ Dynamic Spine & Paper Pricing

Dynamic Spine & Paper Pricing

Top  Previous  Next

As of version 3.7, the Publisher can handle dynamic spine widths in the cover chunk of a product. For this you need to add the following options in the corresponding product description inside the Products.xml (see example in <SetupWizard>\Source\4all.EN\products_demo.zip):

  <FEATURE selected="1" visible="1">
  <Name>Finishing</Name>                                //can be any name, i.e. PaperType

  <OPTION selected="1" visible="1">                //0 = hidden, 1/missing = visible
    <Name>Premium Glossy</Name>
    <UpPrice>1000</UpPrice>                        //= € 1 general production cost increase for binding glue
    <PageUpPrice>10</PageUpPrice>                //= 1 cent per page
    <PaperThickness>3µm</PaperThickness>   //must include mm or µm

  <OPTION selected="0" visible="1">
    <Name>Normal Matt</Name>


UpPriceInc in the Chunk section defines the overall production price increase for the content chunk, if PageIncrement is set, i.e. if the book becomes larger or needs to be handled differently. In addition to this, if PageUpPrice is defined as a feature (optional image) or option (values dropdown), the price of the book is increased by the number of pages times PageUpPrice. This can account for a thicker or more expensive paper. The possible formulas are thus:

Book price without paper options =
BasePrice + (PageIncrements * UpPriceInc) + FeatureX.UpPrice + FeatureY.UpPrice

Book price with premium paper =
BasePrice + (PageIncrements * UpPriceInc) + FeatureX.UpPrice + FeatureY.UpPrice
+ (PageUpPrice * Pagecount)


The second new dynamic modification is introduced by the PaperThickness and BaseSpineWidth options, which recalculate the width of the cover to account for the changing thickness of the binding (spine). The following illustration explains how to plan a dynamic cover, defined in the design mode as a single page with:

Cover Width = 2 * (Spine Joint Width + Content Page Width + Overlap + Bleed/Wrap)

In this cover layout, the dynamic spine should not be included, as it is calculated on-the-fly:

Dynamic Spine Width = BaseSpineWidth + (PaperThickness * Pagecount)



If PaperThickness = 0 or not used, then spine width = 0. This was the default for versions below 3.7, and customers used to simulate a binding by placing a locked and not printable rectangle in the center of the page. The width of this simulated binding was then manually added to the horizontal bleed. However, this technique did not react dynamically on PageIncrements, so the bleed had to account for MaxPageCount. As a result, the user did not really know where to place book titles in the center of the cover, because the actual cover boundary was somewhere inside the bleed, depending on the number of pages.

In version 3.7, you can now define PaperThickness, which is multiplied by the actual number of pages and automatically calculates and draws a physical binding, thus increasing the cover width. To this BaseSpineWidth is added. If you only have one paper type, then set the paper feature or option to visible=0, so no dropdown will be shown in the product options page. In the cover bleed, you should now include the following physical elements:

Horizontal Cover Bleed =
Cardboard Thickness + Horizontal Inside Wrap + Normal Bleed

Vertical Cover Bleed =
Cardboard Thickness + Vertical Inside Wrap + Normal Bleed

Definitions:Spine Joint: attaches the binding to the cover
Content Overlap: by how much the cover overlaps (extends over) the content page
Cardboard Thickness: the thickness of the cover material in the Z axis
Inside Wrap: what is glued on the inside of the cover, i.e. what you see of the cover when you open the book
Normal Bleed: paper cutting tolerance
Book Title: text fields which can be fixed in the design mode, so the user can edit but not remove them


lightbulb_onTo visually display the spine and spine joints (pinch) in layout files, image files can be added to the PRODUCTS.XML. Example:

 <PRODUCT id="fb0006" active="1" selected="0" groupid="bk1">


   <PinchImageFileLeft Distance="0.3cm">images\pinch_left.png</PinchImageFileLeft>

   <PinchImageFileRight Distance="0.3cm">images\pinch_right.png</PinchImageFileRight>


The PinchImageFile will be displayed at the position of the blue bar in the following image, with an optional displacement of Distance, and will move out dynamically with the dynamic spine width. The FoldFile will be displayed exactly in the center:



2015 © 3P Photobook Publisher