Send a cover wrap (your cover plus extra to fold round the boards), your inside pages as single pages, and two endpaper files if your endpapers are printed. We’ll send you the exact cover dimensions for your book.
That’s four PDFs with printed endpapers, or two with plain ones.
The files we need for a hardback
A hardback is built differently from a paperback. Your pages are bound into a case of rigid 2mm boards, the cover wraps right round them, and endpapers join the pages to the case. So we need up to four PDFs.
Back cover, spine and front cover as one flat spread, plus 17mm all round to fold over the boards.
Two spreads, each twice the width of your pages. The first thing readers see inside the cover.
Two more spreads for the back of the book, set up the same way.
Single pages in reading order, at your page size with 3mm bleed.
Plain endpapers are unprinted 170gsm uncoated paper, so there’s nothing to design. Printed ones can carry a pattern, a solid colour or a full image.
Work out your cover wrap size
It’s only adding up. Across: a 17mm turn-in, the back cover, 5mm where the cover bends at the hinge, the spine, another 5mm, the front cover and a second 17mm turn-in. Up and down: two 17mm turn-ins, plus 3mm top and bottom where the boards overhang your pages.
Width = 17 + page width + 5 + spine + 5 + page width + 17mm
Height = 17 + 3 + page height + 3 + 17mm
| The sum | Cover wrap | |
|---|---|---|
| Width | 17 + 148 + 5 + 9 + 5 + 148 + 17 | 349mm |
| Height | 17 + 3 + 210 + 3 + 17 | 250mm |
Our spine calculator is for perfect bound books. On a hardback, the boards and endpapers add to the spine: 40 pages on 130gsm silk make a 3mm paperback spine but a 9mm hardback one. Tell us your page size, page count and paper, and we’ll send you the exact cover dimensions for your book.
Make a new document 349mm wide and 250mm high, with 17mm margins so the turn-ins show as guides. Set Columns to 2 with a 9mm gutter, and the gap between the columns is your spine.
Keep the important bits on the flat panels
Once the cover is glued round the boards, not all of it stays in view. Think of it as two kinds of area.
These sit flat on the finished book. Your title, cover image, blurb and spine text belong here.
The turn-ins and the folds beside the spine are bent or partly hidden. Keep anything important out, but run your background colour or image through them, as a little still shows.
The case-binding video shows exactly where the cover folds round the boards, and where the endpapers are glued down.
Set up your endpapers as spreads
Each endpaper is one sheet, twice the width of your pages, folded in half. One half is glued to the inside of the board; the other half becomes the first loose leaf of the book. So three sides are on show, and one is glued down and never seen.
| Book | Page size | Endpaper spread |
|---|---|---|
| A5 | 210 × 148mm | 210 × 296mm |
| A4 | 297 × 210mm | 297 × 420mm |
| Square | 210 × 210mm | 210 × 420mm |
A two-page PDF. Page 1 is the reverse of the sheet: leave its right-hand half blank, because that half is glued to the inside front cover. Page 2 is the first spread you see when you open the cover.
Also a two-page PDF. Page 1 is the reverse: leave its left-hand half blank, because that half is glued to the inside back cover. Page 2 is the last spread before you close the back cover.
Inside pages: single pages, in reading order
One PDF of single pages, not spreads, in reading order. Page 1 is the first right-hand page after the endpapers. We call them text pages, but photos and illustrations are just as welcome.
- Your page size, with 3mm bleed wherever colour touches the edge.
- Images around 300dpi at the size they’ll print.
- At least 28 inside pages.
- Text kept clear of the spine side, especially on your first and last pages, where the endpapers are glued on. Our gutter answer has the measurements.
- Photos across a spread nudged 2–3mm outwards on each half, as a few millimetres disappear into the spine.
Exported spreads by mistake? Our free Spread Splitter turns them back into single pages, with the bleed intact.
The cover overhangs the pages by 3mm on each side, so a 210 × 210mm book finishes at 216 × 216mm. Design at your inside page size, and always give us that size.
How a hardback runs, front to back
Picture the book in your hands. Here’s what a reader meets, and which file each part comes from.
- Front coverThe front of your cover wrap (file 1).
- Open the coverPage 2 of file 2. Its left half is glued to the inside front cover, and its right half is the loose leaf.
- Turn the leafIts back, the left half of page 1 of file 2, faces page 1 of your inside pages.
- Your inside pagesPages 2 and 3 form a spread, then 4 and 5, and so on through file 4.
- Your last pageThe last page of file 4 sits on the left, facing the right half of page 1 of file 3.
- Turn the last leafPage 2 of file 3, with its right half glued to the inside back cover. Then the back cover.
Choose your cover: printed or cloth
Your artwork on 170gsm silk, matt or gloss laminated and wrapped over the boards. Photos, illustration, pattern or type: if you can design it, we can print it.
Woven book cloth from Winter & Company. Cloth can’t be printed, so your title or logo is foiled on. Cloth adds around £250 to a run, and foil is from £280 per run.
Foil needs one extra PDF, the same size as your cover, with everything to be foiled in 100% black (0/0/0/100), ideally as vector artwork. Our foil set-up answer has the details. Premium finishes add 5–6 working days.
Prices checked September 2026 · we confirm the exact price on your quote. Every hardback quote also shows the same book in softback, so you can compare.
Proofs, timings and sending your files
Hardbacks are always proofed, every time. You can change anything until you approve, and once you do, it goes straight to press. Want to hold one first? A bound hardback proof costs £120–180 at cost price, though it isn’t colour-matched to the final run. Or order a single copy first: there’s no minimum.
Stapled booklets with you in 3 working days, perfect bound books in 5 and hardbacks in 7. Free UK tracked delivery. Lead times depend on run length and print spec, and the clock starts once you approve your proof. Long litho runs of 700+ hardbacks can take 4–8 weeks from October to December.
Hardbacks take a little more setting up, so allow a few extra days. Send us a work-in-progress file ahead of time and we can hit the ground running when the final files land.
Then export each file as a PDF/X-1a with crop marks, and send them by WeTransfer to hello@exwhyzed.com with your quantity and delivery address.
Quick questions
What’s the fewest pages a hardback can have?
28 inside pages. The boards and endpapers build that into a proper 9mm spine.
Should my hardback be glued or section sewn?
Glued is perfect for most books. Section sewn hardbacks have their pages stitched in with thread before binding, so they’re tougher and open flatter, and they cost more.
Can I add a ribbon marker?
Yes, for 50p a book, in seven colours.
Can I emboss a hardback cover?
No, the boards are too rigid to press into. Foil works beautifully instead, on a printed cover or on cloth.
Stuck on the sums? Send it anyway.
Tell us your page size, page count and paper, and we’ll send you the exact cover dimensions for your book. A real person checks every file for free, and every hardback gets a proof before it prints.
