If you are looking for a highly professional and elegant binding style you might be considering twin loop wire binding (also called wire-o, double loop or double-o binding). This binding style uses a piece of coated steel wire that is bent into a "C" shape to provide an excellent and professional bound look to documents, presentations and proposals. This type of binding provides and excellent look and feel. However, if you have never bound a document with wire-o binding you might be a little bit confused as to how this binding style works. Here is a quick step by step guide to binding documents with twin loop wire.

1. The first step to binding documents using double loop wire is to prepare your document. If you are going to use paper or plastic binding covers you should assemble your books with the covers in place. You will often find that your punch will be more effective if you punch the covers as part of the book instead of by themselves (if you are using oversize covers you will need to punch them by themselves since they are not the same size as the pages from your document). After you have assembled your document you need to measure your book so that you can choose the correct size of binding wire for your presentation. In order to choose the correct size of wire-o spine just measure the thickness of the document (do not compress the pages) and add 1/8" to allow your pages to move freely. If your document is less than 5/8" then you will use 3:1 pitch wire and if it is 5/8" or thicker you will need to use 2:1 pitch wire.

2. The second step to binding documents with twinloop wire is to set up your wire binding machine. Setting up your punch really isn’t that hard. However, you will need a few pieces of blank paper for testing your machine. You will notice that the binding table on your machine should have a paper guide to help you insert the paper so that the holes will be centered on the page. Most machines will have a marking on the binding table for the most common sizes of paper. This marking is a starting point to getting your machine set up. Simply move the paper guide to the correct marking, insert a sheet of paper into the punching slot and pull the punching handle on the side of the machine (or press the punching button if your machine is electric). After you have done this, take the piece of punched paper and fold it in half to check and see if the holes line up. If you notice that you have a half hole hanging over the edge of the document you may need to pull one of the punching pins above the punching slot to prevent that pin from punching. If all the holes are lined up and centered you are ready to punch your documents, if they don’t, you will need to move the paper guide and punch another piece of paper until you get the document set up.

3. After your machine is set up, you are ready to punch your document. For best results, it is important that you separate your books into small sections. To prolong the life of your punch you should not try to punch the maximum capacity of your punch with every lift. Depending on the machine that you have you will most likely be able to punch between 10-15 pages per lift although some smaller machines may not be able to punch this many pages. Just remember that by punching smaller lifts, you can prevent paper jams and actually increase your productivity. As you punch the sections of your document simply stack them up beside the punch so that they are ready to have the plastic combs added to them. It is often helpful to offset stack the documents to make them easier to pick up during when you insert the pages onto the wires.

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