printing PDFs?

[Nyarlathotep]

Personally, I would recommend against buying a colour laser, for any significant amount of printing. Printing gets expensive, is the thing. This is based on what I've seen and read so far, but I'm more than willing (and happy) to be wrong here.

But with a mono laser, and a thermal binder, you can do a pretty good job at fairly low cost, IME.

True. I bought a color laser printer (Samsung CLP-510) for about 325.00 CAD. Prints fast and duplexes which is nice. What's not nice are the consumable costs. 4 toner cartridges (7,000 pages @ 5% density) at about $110.00 each, plus waste toner cartridges every 10,000 pages, new transfer unit at ..., new drum at ... and so forth.

I can't remember what it all broke down to, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were 15 cents a page over a 50,000 page run. My mono laser was about 2 cents a page.

All that said, even with the higher price, I'd never go back to mono. It's just too damn convenient to have a decent color printer that I don't have to worry about cartridges drying up on me. YMMV.

 

[defendi]

I keep all interiors B&W and that cuts down the costs, saving color for covers and maps. My Dell has black cartridges for 30-40 on Froogle most of the time. I've been using it two years now and I'm only now about to replace the last of the color cartidges (the black I've gone through at least two, probably three and I'm almost through the current one). My imaging drum is just starting to give warnings.

 

[Nellisir]

I have a laser printer, any tips for binding a Book?

I quite like the tape bound. The "tape" has a thick layer of glue that's heated and the pages set into it. You get a nice, stiff, square binding, and you can put the books on the shelf with conventional books. Some of mine are probably two years old now, and they've held up without any problems. They are harder to lay flat, though.

 

[Bacris]

I quite like the tape bound.

/second

Tape binding is personally my preference unless I'm doing a true hardcover book bind. If done right, it's very sturdy and looks nice. The only downside is no text on the spine unless you use some sort of ad hoc label maker.

 

[Graybeard]

I know at Staples you can get a color laser HP printer starting at about $400. There is no drum to replace, only the toner cartridges themselves. The toner is more expensive than b&w but I believe the cost per page (based on 5% coverage) is about 8 cents for color and 3 cents for b&w. Paper is not that expensive and not having a drum to replace after 10,000 pages (at about $70-$80) is nice.

 

[Nellisir]

/second

Tape binding is personally my preference unless I'm doing a true hardcover book bind. If done right, it's very sturdy and looks nice. The only downside is no text on the spine unless you use some sort of ad hoc label maker.

I use silver markers. Not "professional", but shows up quite well.

 

[bento]

I have a laser printer, any tips for binding a Book?

I go for spiral bound, so I never have pages that fall out and I can fold the book over.