The Magic of the Book Flapping Machine

What are cover flaps?
Also known as gatefold covers, or French flaps, these types of covers are designed with a section that folds in on itself. A cover can have one or two flaps in various widths, depending on their purpose.

Cover flaps have several aesthetic and practical benefits, such as making the cover stronger. If your book is going to be handled by a lot of people, this can be a great way to improve durability and ensure your book is more resistant to wear and tear. Unlike the solid cover of a hardback book, a cover with French flaps will be lighter and more flexible.

Probably the most useful feature of a cover flap is that it can be used for additional information. Just like a dust jacket on a hardback book, the cover flap on a paperback is an ideal place to print a profile of the author or a summary of the book’s contents. The flap on the inside back cover can also be used for additional information, such as listing other publications that the author has produced.

A popular choice is to use a narrow strip on the inside front and back covers. However, a wider flap can give the cover greater strength and offer a larger area for printing.

Production costs
Due to the additional preparation work needed, the time required to produce a book with flaps will be higher. With a traditional paperback, the cover and the block (inner pages) are trimmed at the same time. When a cover has one or more flaps the block will need partial trimming before the cover is attached, which can increase the cost of printing.

French flaps, sometimes called a gatefold cover style, are folded flyleaves in the interior of a paperback cover, used to give an extra decorative elegance to a paperback publication. They can serve exactly the same function as a hardback dust jacket, allowing more space for presentation and marketing, with a book synopsis or extra artwork. But you can choose to leave them blank, or just contain your logo. They can also have a functional value, allowing the reader to use the front flap as a bookmark. You can choose to have both front and back gatefold flaps, or just one.

The flaps can be customized to the size you want, whether almost as wide as the entire cover with full-color artwork, or just a small fold to give a bookmark with room for a little text or a logo – the choice is yours. Covers with French flaps are produced differently from ordinary paperbacks, where the trimming is the final step after binding, as with the gatefold style the cover is trimmed before the book is bound. These custom covers need to be made by experts.

Customized gatefolds that give your book extra elegance.

Book Flapping Machine

Book Flapping Machine is designed for the book cover binding finish and automatically completes the procedure of book block front cutting, book cover creasing, and folding. Easy operation and adjustment, the speed can be up to 45 pcs/min.

Book Flapping Machine Features

-Automatic book feeding and collecting conveyor.
-Bookblock front cutting, book cover creasing, and folding were completed at one time.
-High production efficiency and time-saving.

Book Flapping Machine Workflow and Details

Upper knife moving to trim book's front

Book cover scoring and folding