Use this article when your shop saddle-stitches signatures into booklets — magazines, brochures, catalogues, programmes — and you need Estimator to surface a stitched-book product on every quote. After this you will have a stitched book category that appears in the create-estimate product picker, prices the inner and cover parts on the price breakdown, and ties the bind step to your saddle stitcher.
Steps
1. Create the category
Open Estimate Setup → Products → Categories, then select + Add New. Fill in the fields below.
Identification
Name — the customer-facing product family (e.g., "Stitched Book", "Brochure"). This is the label that appears in the create-estimate product picker.
Display Name — leave the same as Name unless you need a separate internal name (rare).
Category Type — choose Saddle Stitching. This is the lever that unlocks book-specific fields downstream (inner/cover parts, page-multiple rules, signature math).
Calculation and imposition
Price Model — set to paper_calc for sheet-fed stitched books. This tells Estimator to price by parent sheet, signature count, and run length rather than by unit.
Price Adjustment Model — pick Gross Profit% or VA per Press Hour depending on how your shop reads margin on the estimate UI. Gross Profit% is the common default for mixed-volume stitched work.
Bleed — default bleed in millimetres applied to each page (e.g., 3 mm). Estimator uses this when calculating sheet layout.
Flags
Allow Same Size Sheet — leave No. Stitched books almost always need bleed and gripper margin, so the parent sheet must be larger than the finished book. Switch to Yes only for an unusual no-bleed economy variant.
Mixed Production Enabled — leave No unless your stitcher routinely runs inner and cover on the same press pass.
Markups
Labor / Machine / Delivery / Outwork — default markup percentages applied to each cost bucket (e.g., 20% each). These are starting values; customer-specific overrides live in pricing rules.
Save the row. The Pending Changes count increments by one in the sidebar.
2. Define the parts
Open Category Parts for the new category. Stitched books carry two parts that price independently: the inner signatures and the cover sheet.
Add an inner part row first:
Name —
inner.Is Cover — No. The inner is the bound signatures.
Is Wraps Preceding — No.
Sheets Per Part — leave blank for stitched books (this field is only used for NCR Forms).
Production Steps — list the ordered operations Estimator must route on the inner: typically print → cut → fold → bind. Each operation must match a machine you configured under Print Machines, Finishing Machines, and Binding Machines.
Tags — pair the inner with compatible substrates and presses (e.g.,
coated-text,digital). Estimator filters routes using these tags.
Add a cover part row second:
Name —
cover.Is Cover — Yes. This tells Estimator that the cover wraps the inner and prices on a single sheet, not a multi-page signature.
Is Wraps Preceding — Yes if your cover is glued or stitched around the trimmed inner.
Production Steps — typically print → cut → laminate → bind (the cover usually picks up a laminate step the inner does not).
Tags — pair with the cover-grade substrate (e.g.,
coated-cover,digital).
Save each part row. Pending Changes increments again.
3. Configure the quote inputs
Open Finish Sizes, Page Limits, Page Colors, and Field Rules under Products and constrain the category to the inputs your shop actually accepts.
Finish Sizes — add the standard book sizes (e.g., A4, A5, US Letter) and select Custom Size if you want to offer custom dimensions on this category.
Page Limits — set the minimum and maximum inner page count and require a multiple of 4 (the stitched-signature constraint). For example, 8–96 pages in increments of 4.
Page Colors — list the allowed color options per part (e.g., full colour both sides on inner, full colour single side on cover).
Field Rules — surface any conditional inputs (lamination, spot finishing) so the estimator only sees options that apply to this category.
4. Apply the changes
Open the Pending Changes panel in the sidebar and review the staged category, parts, and quote inputs. Select Apply Changes to publish to live setup.
The Pending Changes count returns to zero, and Stitched Book appears in the create-estimate product picker with the inner/cover parts routed through your saddle stitcher.
Things to know
The Is Cover and Is Wraps Preceding fields only appear on Saddle Stitching, Perfect Binding, Case Binding (Hardcover), Spiral & Coil Binding, and Pad Glue category types. If you switch the Category Type later, those fields disappear and the part loses its cover behaviour — re-check the parts after any category-type change.
Stitched books need a Page Limits rule that enforces multiples of 4. Without it, an estimator can enter a 30-page inner that the bind line cannot run, and the quote will route to a machine that does not exist for that page count.
If the bind step is missing on the price breakdown after a stitched-book quote, the most common cause is that the category was not added under Saddle Stitch Categories on the binder editor. Open the saddle stitcher and confirm this category is in its accepted list.