Printing and Binding books

Printing can get very expensive, so I bought the Brother HL5150D(duplex printer, prints both sides) which is recommended by Robinson Homeschool . I got a good deal for a refurbished model online from Office Depot two years ago. Robinson Homeschool curriculum is vintage books all on cd's, and they require quite a bit of printing, so I thought they would have good recommendations for low cost copies.

The Brother HL5150D is a laser printer which runs less expensive copies than ink jets. It got excellent reviews across the net, especially at PriceGrabber.com. This site which sells the replacement laser toner cartridges reports that the printing cost per page is .011 cents! A very good price for copies, especially two sided copies which would run you half that amount per page, about .0055 cents per page.

You can always bind the books yourself. Here are some home book binding helps:

Book binding tutorial Skip to step 3 if you are making your own copies. This looks very labor intensive, but you might pick up a few helpful tips even if you don't make a book from scratch.

Homemade leather or book binding glue


Office Depot charges .08 cents a copy, so I won't be asking them to copy a book for me. They will do a nice comb binding for $2.39. You can punch holes in pages and use brads, but a comb binding makes turning pages so much easier. I plan to try this with a few books soon. I'll post when I do.

Another idea would be to punch holes in a book and place it into a ring binder. This would be especially good for books which you plan to just use for school, rather than reading books you plan to keep in your library.

Feel free to add ideas for binding books.