While the pressman is laying out his plates the feeder should be cutting thin sheets of paper the size of one of the plates. Some of these papers are cut about one inch shorter than the plates for "bevels," and these are pasted on the middle of the full-size pieces. These bevels and the larger "blank" sheets are to go between the plates and the blocks to overcome any variation there may be in the thickness and to make the surface of the form as nearly level as possible. The "bevels" raise the centres very slightly above the edges of the plate, thus reducing the pressure of the cylinder at the points of contact and departure, and saving the plates from wear.
The cylinder being properly packed, and the form of blocks fastened on the press so that the impression of the form will come in the middle of the paper sheets, it is necessary to know whether the binder is to fold the sheets by hand or by machine, and if the latter, what kind of machine, as different ones require different "imposition" or arrangement of pages. This being decided, the plates are fastened on the blocks so arranged that when the sheet is cut and folded the pages of the book will run consecutively. Before levelling up the form with the bevels and blank sheets, the plates of all open or short pages, if any, are replaced with solid pages, as these sheets and underlay are to remain through the printing of all the forms of the book. The rollers are now put in the press and adjusted to just touch the inking table, the ink put on the rollers and distributed, and one impression printed on one of several sheets of thin paper which are run through the press together.[3] This printed sheet is then turned face down by the pressman and any unevenness of the impression noted. One of the printed pages is taken as a standard and by removing as many pieces of the thin sheets as necessary from under the plates where the impression is too heavy, and by adding where it is not heavy enough, the surface of the form is finally "evened," or made as nearly equal as possible.
[Footnote 3: If one sheet of paper were run through the press before "making ready," it would not receive any impression, there being a space equal to the thickness of ten sheets of paper between the cylinder and the surface of the type. A bunch of six or eight sheets is therefore run through to get an impression for "make-ready" purposes.]