I have just handed in my PhD thesis and finished all corrections! Thanks to covid it's all been digital up to this stage, but I'd really like a nice hard bound copy to keep on my shelves.

The problem is, my thesis template has a blue line at the bottom of each page and every print company I've seen says if there is even one pixel of colour on a page it gets charged as a full colour page, meaning I'm looking at well over £100 per copy.

Does anyone know of a printer that charges base on the amount of colour ink used, rather than just a flat fee per colour page?

I guess my other option would be to print it off myself and then just do the binding professionally. Are there companies that let you do that?

Thanks in advance!

I know this might be a stupid question, but can't you remove the blue line? Or re-colour it into grey/black?

If not, you can sometimes print the thesis yourself and go to a binders after, but you'll need to contact the binders ahead of time to ask 1) if it's possible, and 2) if you need to format the document in a particular way (e.g. put a thicker margin on the left side).

I agree with Phoenix Fortune, can you remove the blue line?

Although, at my uni staff have free printing. I know several students that printed their thesis with uni printers that way and then paid for the binding. Also, most of the print shops near me offer thesis binding for £10.