Abstract: A bookbinding machine having an inner-book transporting system, consisting of a conveyer, preferably a roller chain with individual links that engage movably in one another, running around deflecting wheels, and of a multiplicity of clamps, at points of articulation of the conveyer, for clamping-in stacks of leaves, which clamps are disposed at equal mutual distances from one another and so as to be movable, drivewise on the conveyer means, and are guided in tracks on a machine frame, having an entry and an exit and having a number of processing stations along rectilinear conveyer paths, wherein the machine frame (1) has, in the region of the processing stations, a path section (A, B) in a length corresponding to a grid arrangement (R) with a defined basic dimension (x), and processing stations in the form of functional modules (4) in a breadth corresponding to the grid arrangement (R).