The machine is built to finish digital documents with higher paginations, and it counteracts an area that the firm had previously found troublesome.

Director, Richard Walmsley says that books of over 60 pages - produced digitally on its Kodak Nexpress - would gape open describing the output as 'unattractive'.

He continues: “The alternative was perfect binding, which added too much time and cost, defeating the object of digital print. What we needed was a booklet maker built for digital which could handle thicker books with a more professional finish.”

The machine stitches, folds, spine forms and trims in one unit.  The output has a square spine, giving a perfect-bound appearance. Watkiss also claims it is the only device of its kind on the market, that can accommodate up to 200 pages in one stitched book.

Walmsley added that he was offered a Squareback system as an add-on but believes it should come as part of a book, something which Watkiss could offer.

He also praised the increased quality of digital print claiming that in the past, the firm had described it as 'apology print', because they always had to apologise for the poor quality.

Digital now sits alongside litho and screen at the 15,000 headquarters of the ￡3.8m turnover business.