The Batley, West Yorkshire company, which consists of merged companies AB Co, Wellan Studios and RW Reprographics, brought in the machine to replace its 10-year-old bookletmaker in the autumn.

The company had been looking to upgrade its finishing to the same standard as its digital printers, including a two-year-old Kodak Nexpress, while meeting the same tight deadlines as demanded by customers.

AB Print Group director Richard Walmsley said: "We have been following the evolution of digital print with our machines and were waiting for finishing to catch up. It’s a cracking piece of kit and now we’ve gone from apology finishing to quality finishing."

The Watkiss Powersquare 200 stitches, folds, spine forms and trims in one unit, creating square spines that are similar in appearance to perfect bound books, manufacturer Watkiss claimed.

Walmsley said the company needed a finishing solution that kept up with the speed of digital print, so a perfect binder was not an option. While the company still offers perfect binding as an outsourced service, Walmsley said more and more customers are opting to have their books bound on the Watkiss Powersquare 200.

Walmsley said that the new product solves the issue of gaping that he had with books over 44 pages. For projects such as the Halifax Town football club programmes, ramping up the pagination to over 60 would mean having to reconsider the thickness of the paper used.

While the Watkiss Powersquare 200 has brought in a similar amount of work from existing customers, the jobs being ordered are much higher pagination projects. He added: "It’s a massive selling point for us now and its good to have the money coming in-house.

"Our clients are telling their customers about the savings that can be made, the quality of the square spine and the quick turnarounds gained from the Watkiss Powersquare 200. Our customers have said that they prefer our new bookletmaker’s quality ten times more than our previous finishing."

The £3.8m-turnover company has also bought an Autobond laminator and Schneider guillotine, to be delivered next week. The two pieces of kit were bought at cut prices from a nearby printer that has recently gone into administration.