Abstract: A combined system of printing presses and a plurality of collators. Each of the collators assembles a freshly printed signature from the printing press with at least one preprinted signature. Each collator includes a plurality of hoppers for receiving signatures and means for feeding the signatures individually from the hoppers and for collating the signatures fed from the hoppers. A conveying system is provided for selectively either directing a stream of signatures from each of the respective printing presses to one respective hopper of each of the collators or directing a stream of signatures from either press to both of the one hoppers of both collators.