Guiding Principles for Printing of Textbooks

The "Guiding Principles for Quality Textbooks" prepared by the Education Bureau include criteria of quality textbooks such as the content should be self-contained and sufficient to address effectively the learning targets of the curriculum without requiring the use of additional supplementary materials associated with the textbooks, and the design should facilitate the reuse of textbooks. To provide publishers with a clear picture of the related criteria and encourage them to print textbooks using appropriate printing methods with low cost features, we have prepared the "Guiding Principles for Printing of Textbooks" (formerly known as "Guidelines for Printing of Textbooks") for their reference.

• Use paper that is light, thin, durable and matt finished.
• Use paper of lower cost given comparable quality.
• Take into consideration the impact on human health and environment when choosing paper. For example, may use printing paper that complies with the green specifications prepared by the Environmental Protection Department. (For details, please refer to the "List of products with recommended green specifications" prepared by the Environmental Protection Department and available at www.epd.gov.hk)

• Use single colour to print the texts in textbooks as far as possible.
• Avoid using special colours in addition to full colour to print coloured pictures (e.g. atlas).
• Use single colour for printing workbooks.

• Take into consideration the impact on human health and environment when choosing inks. For example, may use environmentally-friendly lithographic process inks that comply with the green specifications prepared by the Environmental Protection Department. (For details, please refer to "List of products with recommended green specifications" prepared by the Environmental Protection Department and available at www.epd.gov.hk)

• Print textbooks, workbooks and other supplementary materials separately so that consumers are able to choose and pay only for the learning resources that fit their needs.
• Reduce the blank space margin on each side of the page.
• Avoid any materials for one-off use, e.g. stickers that can be used only once, and learning activities that require tearing off pages from the textbook, as far as possible.

• Adopt font types that are commonly used.  The font type and font size should be consistent throughout the textbooks as much as possible.
• Use a minimum font size equivalent to font size 12 in "Microsoft Word" for legibility. A larger font size is recommended for textbooks for the kindergarten and lower primary levels.
• Regarding the standardised written forms of Chinese characters, please refer to the "List of Graphemes of Commonly-used Chinese Characters" published by the Chinese Language Education Section, Education Bureau in 2012.
• Regarding the Chinese translations of those English terms commonly used in different subjects, please refer to the respective English-Chinese glossary prepared by the Education Bureau.

• Use gloss lamination to protect textbook covers and avoid using matt lamination.
• Avoid using costly methods to print textbook covers (e.g. the spot UV varnishing).

• Make good use of flexible binding methods to reduce the weight of textbooks.
• Adopt proper binding methods to make textbooks easier to carry. For example, may bind textbooks in loose leaves, separate them into a few thin volumes or print them in separate modules.

• Do not bundle the sale of textbooks and other associated supplementary materials such as workbooks and summer vacation exercises as textbook contents should be self-contained in principle.
• Do not attach CDs that contain supplementary learning materials to the textbooks, except for those learning materials that are inseparable from textbooks such as CDs for the subject of Music and listening CDs for Putonghua.

Textbook Committee
Education Bureau
June 2014