# Why aren't more/all technical books ring-bound? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 22, 2009, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-more-all-technical-books-ring-bound/511130 "2009-09-22T20:03:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-more-all-technical-books-ring-bound/511130/1 "2009-09-22T20:03:51Z")
I couldn’t quite decide whether this belonged in GQ or here so I picked here. As a user of technical books I can see a HUGE advantage that ring-bound books have over traditionally bound books. With a traditionally bound book, if you open it, it will tend to close if you take your hands away from it. (which you are likely to need to do - to use a keyboard or mouse) It makes using it as a learning-tool very annoying and impractical. I’ve bought two book holding devices (not at the same time) in an attempt to solve the problem. Both have proved woefully inadequate for the job. I have resorted to clipping the open pages with a bulldog clip. That strategy starts to fail as you get quite far into the book. And it means you have to constantly unclip and re-clip every time you turn a page (or refer back to previous pages). But with a ring bound book, you can turn a page over, and it will lie neatly, flatly, and conveniently on the left. You can take your hands away and it will stay where you put it. The biggest disadvantage I can see (from the point of the book publisher, and a careless user) is that the pages are probably easy to accidentally rip out. If not exclusively produce books in the ring-bound style it would be a happy comprimise if a _version_ of the book were available in a ring-bound form. In case you haven’t a clue what ring-bound is… [http://www.gettingpersonal.co.uk/images-new/80\_ei\_DSC5174\_xlrg.jpg](http://www.gettingpersonal.co.uk/images-new/80_ei_DSC5174_xlrg.jpg) (many A to Z books are ring-bound) ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-more-all-technical-books-ring-bound/511130/2 "2009-09-22T20:26:58Z")
I would guess part of it could be ring bound books have a higher liklihood of the pages being lost due to the perforation effect. Also rinbound are usually a little more bulky aren’t they? ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-more-all-technical-books-ring-bound/511130/3 "2009-09-22T20:39:18Z")
Ring-bound books don’t store well on a bookshelf. Ten ring-bound books side by side make a mess of each other because they’re not even from front to back. Some of [the better technical books](http://oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2004/repkover_0304.html) use a lay-flat binding which works pretty well. Enjoy, Steven