The Printing and Publishing Office strives to fulfill our customers' needs and exceed their expectations by maximizing our resources and integrating partnerships with state contract printing vendors. We strive to reduce the amount of print spend statewide by competitively bidding out all jobs to the vendors to find the lowest cost. We also provide consultation on projects looking for the most cost efficient method of printing to go along with our free in-house design service.


Our Services

  • Design services to help plan and layout your printing project
  • Quality offset and high-speed digital printing
  • Variable data printing and mailing
  • A wide variety of binding and finishing
  • Copier Management Program
  • CD/DVD production and printing
  • 24 to 48 hour turnaround available (Rush Fees will apply)

Printing consultants are available to meet and discuss any questions you may have and to guide you through your printing project. Simply contact us between 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at 302-857-4520.

Estimates

  • 2 business days for estimates from receipt. This assumes all information is present and ready to prepare. Special requests or processes may lengthen the time to complete an estimate.

Work Orders

  • 7-10 business days for printing from final proof approval*
    * Examples of items that may impact the 7-10 business day turnaround – lamination, numbering, mylar stripping, design work, perfect binding, gold embossed seals, special order stocks, quantity, and specialty print work.
Delivery Expectation
You can expect a Standard print job 7-10 business days from the date of final proof approval. Rush jobs are subject to additional fees.
Letterhead
Creating and or maintaining an identity for your agency is important. Identity is how customers or clients recognize and remember your agency. Stationary is the first step in creating that identity.
Forms
Gathering information, whether internally or from the people you serve, is often best collected by use of a form. Forms allow your agency to collect and enter data in a uniform and meaningful way as well as expedite the data entry process, which saves your agency work hours.
Direct Mail
Direct Mail pieces ranging from Postcards and Brochures to Letters and Statements can be design and printed in spot color or full process color and merged with information from your customer/client databases to create meaningful, personalized publications. Postage fees may be pre-billed upon estimate receipt from the USPS as postage must be "pre-paid".
Brochures, Flyers and Newsletters
Whether it is to your customers or internal staff, disseminating information is critical to achieving your agencies mission. Brochures, Flyers and Newsletters help to disseminate the wealth of information about your services or policies and help to bring the end user in for more.
Directories and Manuals
Does your agency direct the public to services available from your Division, Department or the entire State? Does your agency provide training or educational services internally, to other agencies or to the public? An answer of yes to any of these indicates the need for a Directory or Manual. Where an advertising piece gives your users a place to start, Directories and Manuals provide them with the details necessary to locate services or instruction on what they need to do.
 
The Printing and Publishing Office can also print Reports. There is however a directive from the OMB Director to disseminate reports electronically by posting to websites or burning to disc. The exception would be if it is required by Delaware Code or mandate that a report must be printed. The Printing and Publishing Office needs written justification by a cabinet level approving authority to print any reports.
Programs, Invitations
Programs and Invitations are a great courtesy to attendees of special events. Programs inform and establish a timeline for the event, where an Invitation is a very formal way of inviting attendees. Many high level state functions call for this type of formality.
Maps, Displays, Signs, Posters, Overhead Transparencies
Meetings, educational seminars and events often call for Maps, Displays, Signs, Posters or Overheads to visually illustrate information and concepts. They are an important element to the instruction process.
Specialty Printing
If you don't see what you need in the other product descriptions, then your item may fall under the category of Specialty Printing. Pens, Pencils, Stickers, Post-Its Notes, 3 ring Binders, and other non-standard objects can be obtained.
 
The Printing and Publishing office can consult on and facilitate the order of these Specialty Printing items.

Bindery Services

Bindery Examples and Folding Examples

Case Binding
In case binding, most often used in book production, a minimum of 60 printed sheets are folded into 16 or 32 page signatures, which are collated and sewn by machine. The sewn edges are coated with glue. Then a strip of gauze adheres to the document's spine. Finally, a book and its covers are placed in a casing-in machine, which pastes the endpapers and fits the cover.
Coil Binding
A continuous, spring-shaped piece of plastic, this durable crush-resistant bind allows a bound book to lay flat, even back on itself for easy reading.
Comb Binding
Plastic comb bindings are more vulnerable to damage than spiral bindings. They hold adjoining pages more tightly in register with each other than spiral bindings. They come in several colors and allow screen printing on a document's spine. They can bid pieces up to 3 inches thick.
 
Comb bindings allow pages to lie flat when opened. However, they cannot be doubled back. Inserting them is a hand operation that is quite costly for large numbers of documents.
Perfect Binding
To produce a perfect-bound document, the piece's folded signatures are gathered together in page sequence, clamped together, and placed in a machine that slices about 1/8" off their left edges. Then roughers mill the newly sliced sheet edges to prepare them for gluing. Finally, the edges receive an adhesive application and adhere to a backing.
 
Perfect binding is well suited for use with books, thick magazines, annual reports, technical manuals, and catalogs. From a minimum thickness of 1/8", it works well with a wide range of document thickness' and trim sizes. However, the paper used should not be heavier than 100 lb. Book stock, with the grain running parallel to the piece's spine.
Saddle Stitching
In saddle stitching - the way most booklets, magazines, catalogs, and calendars are bound - wire staples hold the piece together. A machine drives then through its backbone fold to the centerfold, where they clench. A saddle-stitched printed piece lies almost flat when opened, a convenience for readers.
 
However, saddle stitching involves certain mechanical requirements. A saddle-stitched document must be at least eight pages long and increase in length in four-page increments. Saddle stitching is a good choice for binding documents of up to 64-80 pages on 60 lb. to 70 lb. paper. Documents involving more pages, or thicker than 3/8", demand some other type of binding.
Spiral Binding
Spiral bindings may be made of either plastic or wire and allow the printed document to lie flat and to double over, useful characteristics for documents such as technical manuals, notebooks, and calendars.
 
Spiral binding allows play between pages. One cannot add pages to documents once they are spiral bound. Also, rough handling may crush the spirals. Spiral wire coils range from 1/4" to 2" in diameter. They can bind books of up to 24" in length.
Tape Binding
This process places a cloth strip of adhesive tape down the bind edge of the book and wraps around about half an inch onto the cover front and back.
Wire-O Binding
A Wire-O binding holds the covers and pages of a document firmly in place by a double-loop wire inserted through holes drilled in their left edges. All of the document's pages lay flat when opened, can turn easily through 360°, and stay in perfect registration with adjoining pages.
 
Wire-O bindings come in nine standard colors and loop diameters from 3/16" to 1-1/4". They can handle documents from 1/8" to 1" thick. Often, they are used to bind reference books, reports, proposals, and calendars. They are durable, but do not permit printing on the document spine or the insertion of new pages.

A process of folding a printed paper product. Types are: Bi-Fold, Tri-Fold, Z-Fold, and 8-Page Parallel

Copyright Notice
It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright. Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (Title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works.

The Printing and Publishing Office is ready to assist you with the perils of Design. Our staff is knowledgeable in all of the latest standards and techniques of the Design Industry. Our staff can assist you with designing your project or working as a liaison between you and the design firms on state contract. Most of our time goes into understanding your objectives, defining the problem and finally designing the best possible solution.

The Printing and Publishing's in-house services are free of charge. Our in-house resources are limited and not all project needs can be met without the contract vendors. A design consultation meeting can be arranged by contacting Printing and Publishing at (302) 857-4520.

Preferred File Format
The standard file format for printing is PDF. All industry printing is done using PDF's. Any other file type has to be converted to PDF to be considered print ready. Other acceptable file formats are InDesign, Quark, Photoshop or illustrator; Submissions in any other format as listed above may incur design changes resulting in additional fees.
 
Word Processing and Presentation Files: MS Word, MS Publisher, and MS Power Point files are acceptable for printing in black and white or grayscale. Color printing from these files will not match what displays on screen and are offered as-is.

Envelope and Business Card printing has been awarded its own set aside contract through the state Contracting office. Orders for these items are waived from the use of Printing and Publishing services and do not go through our office. Below are links to those contracts. Also Secure Prescription Pads are ordered through the Office of Professional Regulations Tamper Resistant Prescription Pad program and a link to this program is provided below.

Envelope and Business Card Contracts can be found on the Awarded Contracts Directory.

Tamper Resistant Prescription Pads

Normal print orders take 7-10 business days from final proof approval to complete production. Should your work order have a more restrictive timeline, please contact Printing and Publishing to discuss your specific needs. Should the specifications of your request require a longer timeline to complete, you will be contacted.

Orders
7-10 Business Days
Standard Rates Apply
Estimates
Good for 60 Days
Free
Prices are good for up to five (5) quotes on a work order and for the specifications quoted only. Any variation in the order may subject the price to change.
Proofing Fees
The first two (2) proofs incur no service charges
Additional proofs are available for a fee to be determined by the vendor.
Delivery Fees
Cost to deliver jobs is built into the estimate

The State Seal for the State of Delaware shall be the Great Seal of the State of Delaware (29 Del. C. § 301). Depending upon your usage of the Great Seal, Coat of Arms, State Flag, or any variation of these, we may need approval from the Secretary of State. The agency's Cabinet Secretary must request permission in writing to the Secretary of State. This letter should state the specific reason, purpose of the usage, where, and how. The letter can be faxed to the Department of State at (302) 739-3811, Attention: Tamara Stock. Estimated turn-around time for approval is 1-5 business days.

“Government Support Services shall provide graphics and printing services, including but not limited to printing, duplicating, photography and photocopying, to all state agencies. If appropriate, the Director of Government Support Services may award a contract in accordance with Chapter 69 of this title. The acquisition of copiers in state buildings which are managed by the Office of Management and Budget, Division of Facilities Management, shall have the approval of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.” Ref. 29 Delaware Code § 6308A(i).