Ok I didn't realise printing/binding this bloody thing would be so expensive. Right now I need 3 soft bound copies and they're going to cost ~£70 including printing/binding. Later on, hard binding / printing 3 copies will be ~£130. Total cost ~£200. That's without delivery (pick-up locally).

How have others gone about this? I'm somewhat tempted to buy a colour laser printer (there's some decent ones for <£100).

======= Date Modified 07 Aug 2009 13:17:35 =======
Hi

I printed mine myself, it was a nightmare! I had two softbound and that cost £5, which was ok. The printing was cheap because I did it myself.

So far, so good!

For my hard-binding I printed six copies - two to submit, one for each supervisor, one for myself and one for the company I do research for (six copies). Its going to cost me £200 just to get them bound! (£35 each)

I think printing the thesis yourself is a good idea. I preferred it, because I have lots of images and I wanted to check the quality. I had some one print my transfer document and the images came out rubbish.



The thing that made me feel better it thats its almost over!!







:-)

Ok £5 seems like a much more reasonable figure! I'm now quite tempted by the self-printing route as the savings would probably pay for the cost of the printer.

And yeah it's great to be at this stage (even if I did think it would be submitted back in March :$)!

I've noticed some online companies that operate from trading estates seem to do binding cheaply (but I'm not sure about the quality).

I'm planning to have the bare minimum of copies printed (one soft/one hard copy) on the basis that I may need to make amendments (hopefully minor ones).

I was going to print myself, but after adding up the cost of cartridges and archive quality paper, and having to get it all to the printers, I've decided to let the binders do it.

When I submitted, I only had to do two soft copies.
I had my viva on Monday with some typo corrections, and now have to submit the hard bound copies.
It does cost alot to print it yourself. I used about ten cartridges printing all my copies, and it takes ages, but as I said when I had it professionally done, the images didn't look right.
When I spoke to the graduate studies office, they suggested places to get it bound and printed. Is there anywhere within the uni that could do it cheaper.

I had to do seven copies when I submitted. I printed the lot out myself on a printer I didn't have to pay for at college, then it cost about £5 each to have plastic comb bindings in the nearest photocopy shop. I didn't trust the printer to last though, so I printed one complete copy of my thesis first, as my plan B was to get that photocopied in the copy shop then bound, as their paper was a decent weight and it would have been cheaper than buying loads of cartridges myself. The plastic comb bindings look cheap and nasty, but they're ok for submission purposes.

i can't recommend enough this firm called 'helping Student'
They are the cheapest i could think of!! did my 3 hard bound bindings and printing with burnt cds and covers for £93!!!!
they are in london, so after searching a lot for cheaper prices i placced order online from cardiff.
delivery time could be next working day and quality was stunning.
check them out on http://binding.helpingstudent.com

Good luck

Has your University not got a bindery?

There should be some soft binding facilities at your University at least.

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)