Did you ever buy any of those character sheet pads in the old days so you didn't have to go to the photocopier everyday? Like a 20 leaf pad of tearaway pages, each printed with the same image? How would you go about getting a pad like that made, who would you print with and how much would you expect to pay? What are those kinds of pads called (so I can do a google search myself)?

I'm no expert on the printing business, but hope this is of some help... The tearaway is called perforation, or a tear-off fold. Quite a few printers should have the capability to do it as an option, so you would be best off sending some quotes around to the printers you're already frequented with. The price would vary depending on how automatized the printer's process is, but shouldn't be too costly, it's "just" an additional step between printing and binding.

I got a quote from iQLaser for 50x 11inch x 11inch, single sided, gum bound, card backed, 25 leaf, black and white printed pads for £81 excluding shipping. That amounts to £1.62 or $2.47 per pad.

Printing 25 sheets myself would cost me around $2.59 (because I'd have to print on A3). I'd need to guillotine that down to size and buy the glue for around $0.20 per pad (estimate). It works out around the same price, give or take a few cent. If I had more time I'd experiment with doing it myself. As it stands, I'm happy with the quote from iQLaser (though I'll try to reduce the quantity to 25 pads).

Sebastian.