Every spiral notebook fails at the punched edge, and which way it fails is decided before anything is printed.

Pages that stay in

The web of paper between each hole and the edge of the sheet is the weakest part of the book. Set the punch too close and pages tear free in normal use.

Moving the punch line a few millimetres inboard costs nothing and roughly doubles how much abuse the page takes.

Pages that come out

A page torn off the coil always shreds, because it fails through the nearest hole rather than along a line.

A micro-perforation set inboard of the holes gives the tear something straight to follow, and the tie-to-cut ratio decides whether pages need two hands or fall out on their own in a bag. That ratio should be a decision, not a default.

Coil gauge is the other half

The wire or coil has to be gauged to the finished block, including the covers. Too small and the book will not shut; too large and the pages slide around the loops and the covers gape open.

This is why adding a hard cover late changes the binding spec: the block got thicker and the gauge no longer fits.

Tabs go in the same pass

Index tabs punched separately drift by a millimetre or two, then bind against the coil and make the book hard to turn.

Punched with the text block, they cannot drift. It is the same machine time and a completely different product.