CREEP
Graphical Glossary

Creep In a saddle stitched booklet the bulk of the paper causes the inner pages to extend further out than the outer pages when folded. When trimmed the inner pages are narrower than the outer pages.

The illustration above shows an exaggerated view of how the inner pages of a saddle stitched booklet "creep" out and extend beyond the edge of the outer pages when folded.

Creep Allowance Adjusting the page layout of inner spreads to maintain a constant outer margin when the saddle stitched booklet is trimmed.

Problem Creep varies depending on the thickness of the paper and the number of pages. If there is no creep allowance, when pages are trimmed the outer margins become narrower toward the center of the booklet and there is the possibility that text or images may be cut off.

Solution If creep is noticeable, copy can be repositioned toward the center of the spread for those pages in the center of the booklet. When trimmed, all pages will have the same outer margins and no text or images are lost. Some page layout software can automatically calculate and adjust layouts for creep -- moving the page elements of affected spreads in small increments.

The illustration below shows how page elements are adjusted in small increments over a series of spreads.