Binder Clips for the Win!

Zachary Abel's Office Supply Art

I have been a proposal writer for almost a decade. The majority of my experience was in engineering and construction, and it required that I bind my proposals. Binding type varied based on the agency and the Request for Proposal (RFP) instructions, but it fluctuated between wire binding, comb binding, and 3-ring binders.

Now that I'm in human services I see RFPs requesting binder clips or including notes that expensive binding is not required. When they don't specify the type of binding, I simply ask.

This seems like a straight forward way of getting an answer, right?  Not so much. Here's how the Q&A went: 

Question:  "Page XX notes that 'expensive binding should not be used.' Can we use three-ring binders since the requested document will be 300 pages long?"

Response:  "Emphasis should be placed on conformance to the instructions. How to bind the proposal is at the proposer's discretion."

YKINMK

Gee, thanks. I still don't know if I can use a 3-ring binder because I don't know what you consider to be expensive binding! The document's required length is 300 pages, and we need to submit double and single sided versions, which makes the pages 150 and 300 pages respectively.  Forty five minutes of inefficient googling finally paid off, and I now know the following:

BINDER CLIP CAPACITY

Binder Clip Size	Page Capacity
Large 2" (1" capacity)	250
Med 1 1/4" (5/8" capacity)	80
Sm 3/4" (3/8" capacity)	???? (Can't find!)
Mini 9/16" (1/4" capacity)	40

I already had a link for binder capacity, but hey, I'm feeling friendly, so here you go!

3-RING BINDER CAPACITY

Ring Size (Diameter for O-Rings)	Page Capacity
½-inch	75
1-inch	175
1.5-inches	250
2-inches	350
3-inches	570
4-inches	800

Great! This means that I can use a binder clip on all double-sided copies of the proposal! However, I'm still unsure if I can use a 3-ring binder on the one single-sided copy of the document since that will not fit in a binder clip.