Trying to pirate a physical book. Where do I get thinner printer paper? (lemmynsfw.com)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by MyNamesNotRobert@lemmynsfw.com to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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I need to pirate this book thats over 1000 pages. I already have the pdf but I really want a physical copy and the book costs too much for me. Even if I have to buy a bunch of ink (the book has no pictures) and even if I wear out the printhead before the job is done, it's still going to be cheaper to do this. My printer has been blocked from the internet since before the pandemic so I can install all the 3rd party ink and replacement parts I want. I'm not worried about my printer situation.

It seems the biggest challenge I need to overcome is the paper. Cheap printer paper is going to otherwise work it's just that it's too thick. The same amount of cheap printer paper it takes to make the book is going to be more than twice as thick as the book I'm trying to "pirate".

The 8.5x11in size just happens to be the exact size I need for this. Whats the cheapest paper I can get that's still thinner than cheapo office printer paper?

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[-] fhqwgads@possumpat.io 20 points 8 months ago

So, I've never pirated a book but I do have some printing and binding knowledge, so some of this might be off base.

If the original book isn't fully chungus it's probably printed on a low weight newsprint, a low weight coated paper, or something weird like vellum or scritta. Problem is most of that is going to be specialty and only really available in rolls or large sheets through a distributor.

Most of the thinner stuff you'll be able to find in sheets has become a thing with fountain pen lovers. Look for Tomoe River or Bank paper. They are in the 50gsm range and should be a bit thinner than normal 75ish gsm copy paper. It's going to be way more expensive than normal printer paper but it should be thinner. The other issue is actually getting your printer to reliably print on thinner paper. Home printers, especially inkjets, really don't deal with thin paper particularly well. Lasers usually do better since they tend to use a different paper pickup and path, but they can still have issues.

Your printer should have a thin paper setting to reduce the amount of ink that it uses so you don't get as much bleed. The other thing you'll have to look out for is that those papers will take longer to dry than normal paper, so if your printer has a drying time you'll probably need to set it as high as it will go. You might even want to wait a day before flipping it over for the duplex print. Which you definitely should some that will literally halve the size of the book. It will probably be fine anyway since this is likely a multi day project just given how long it will take to spit 1000 pages out of an inkjet.

Unless you absolutely need to have the whole thing with you all the time, I would consider printing it in volumes. Even if you duplicate sections like an index or glossary or reference section or whatever, you're still probably going to have a lot less trouble and maybe spend less.

[-] MyNamesNotRobert@lemmynsfw.com 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Thanks for the write up.

After weighing my options, I think I'm going to just go with normal printer paper. When I said using normal printer paper would be more than twice as thick, I wasn't accounting for the fact that I'd be using both sides. So a 500 page ream should equal 1000 double sided pages. So that means the final size using normal printer paper would only be a little thicker instead of more than twice as thick.

I found some newsprint paper on Amazon that might work but I have an ink jet and I'm thinking it's not going to be worth the hassle considering normal paper isn't as bad of a choice as previously thought.

I'm going to do a few trial runs before deciding how I'll actually bind them together and not print all 1000+ pages before learning somethings not going to work. I want to avoid 3 ring binder. Splitting it into sections sounds like the way to go. I'll experiment with spiral bound. Regular hard cover looks enticing but I'd say that route has a high likelihood of not working out especially with the paper size and quantity I'm dealing with. Maybe I'll dissect a college textbook and see what's inside the spine.

[-] fhqwgads@possumpat.io 6 points 8 months ago

Yeah newsprint would be a pain in an inkjet depending on exactly what it's like. It might not even be much thinner, it's often a little "fluffy" so it can be printed fast.

If you take it in somewhere and get it spiral / coil bound that's probably your best bet if you don't want to do a binder. You can do it yourself but you basically need a little desktop machine to do the punching which is annoying unless you're doing it regularly.

Traditional hardcover probably won't work for you. That involves printing a bunch of booklets called signatures then sewing them together and it's a whole thing. Basically there's a reason well made hardcover books are expensive.

You could do perfect or tape binding pretty easy though. Essentially you glue all the edges to a backing and then wrap a cover around it. It works ok for low usage, but if you want it to lay flat or hold up to abuse you'll have problems. You can kind of mitigate that by using a gpod spine backing but it's not a perfect solution. If the copy you have isn't already laid out for printing it may be worth it to edit it a bit so the contents are farther from the spine if you do that, but it makes printing a bit more complicated.