Back when I was printing medieval manuscripts for personal use, I just made a jig with a hole every 1.5 inches, then used it to drill holes in the edge of a stack of pages. Zip tie each hole, clip the end off, and put a strip of packing tape over the spine and you're golden.
Comb/spiral binders do seem to be an easy way to bind printed material. The advantage is that the binded book also lays flat after opening.
For only a few pages, there is even staple-free stapling. It works by pressing the corner of the pages together hard enough.
Here is what the result looks like: https://youtu.be/Ik9a3MJunB8?t=27
I usually print out technical documents (and sometimes even code). I bind them with either:
* Staples -- For when I don't care. Staples are the lowest quality by far and are only used if I'm disposing of the document very soon.
* 2-hole + prong fastener -- 2-hole binding is extremely cheap. Prong fasteners are not as cheap as staples, but still come in packs of ~100+ and solidly bind documents.
* Comb-binder -- The comb binding machine is on the order of ~$100+, but combs themselves are only a ~dime each. Not as cheap as staples or 2-hole prongs, but combs have the best quality (lays flat, strong binding, turns smoothly, etc. etc.)
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What's listed here is book-binding as an art. Stitched binding + glue will offer strong and beautiful books. Which is certainly useful for one-off projects, for weddings or something special like that.