General printer's question

[JaCkinbOx]

I'm all for forming a good relationship with the printers I deal with, and so I'm here on the sidelines of a project to ask a question of the printers we have on board.

Here's the situation I'm dealing with. I have a new client that's printing out a two-sided card that measures 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 (not exactly, but very close), and she's using some printer friend of hers (who seems to be running printers out of her home) to print them out. They want me to place 4 of the cards (front, then back -- separate sheets) on an 8.5 x 11 (what they'll be printing on and cutting). The measurements of the card will easily be accomodate 4 on an 8.5 x 11 with room to spare. I'm honestly a little confused as to what exactly she's wanting, as her English is a bit unintelligble to me. This is what she says:

"This will print on an 8 1/2 x 11 , but we usually like tick marks to make sure that the are all the same. and also you don't print to the edge of the page you have to have room to cut for the bleed, this will have to be centered in the middle of the sheet, if you print to the edge of the paper it will have black on that particular edge. This will be good just as it it, set it up for 4-up on 8 /12 x 11 with tick marks"

And this email was preceded by this:

"Me again. She does want it all black, the stock to be C1S
Her e mail stated that : I'm lookinging at the size that would be four to a pages instead of that long 1/3 page. If she goes 4-up on a sheet of paper it would be 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 and that will not fit good in a #10 Envelope and if we did 4-up as she says we would have to run over size to get the bleeds. I am thinking the size that I gave you earlier would be better if she is going to put it in an envelope that way it could be would be set up 2-up on 8 1/2 x 11, it will have to run on
8 1/2 x 11 to get the bleeds. Would you set it up 2-up with the tick marks or would be have to do that? Just need to know ."

Any of you have a clue what she's meaning?

I'm attaching samples of the project so you can see what's going on. Does what I did look to be in order or not? Had to make the template and tick marks on my own, guessing at what she's meaning. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v43/JaCkinbOx/template-1.jpg

[Drorain]

I think you just need to bleed it black to just over the edge of the trim marks. Depending on the printer it may or may not be able to do this, it will be close thats for sure. I thing just keep the cut registration on there so they know where to trim.

thats about how much i understand it

[JaCkinbOx]

I'll give it a shot, Drorain. We'll see if she takes it or not. Thanks a bunch.

[jimking]

Your trims look wrong. If you look at the bottom of the sheet it looks like it's going trim right on the black border. It looks like you'll have white showing at the top of the card but not the bottom. Your margins, left and right, look larger than top and bottom. Does not look centered at all. Should those black borders bleed? Do you have QuarkXpress or Indesign? If so, you can save a single image out of Illustrator and place in Quark or Indy and step and repeat the image and also the crop marks. Can be done very quickly.

[JaCkinbOx]

Actually, I was doing it in Illustrator CS2, but I also have InDesign CS2. I haven't set it up for that before. Any suggestions?

[jimking]

Sure. Open a 8.5x11 page in Indy and drag a guide to the center of 8.5/=4.25 and then place a guide center of 11/=5.5. You'll have a 8.5x11 page divided equally in 4 parts. Place your graphic in the top left box and center. Click the image, go to the menu bar and select "edit" scroll down and select "step and repeat." When you step the art it needs to step at the size it is. Another words if the art is 4.25 set repeat to 1, horizontal at 4.25 and 0 vertical. If the graphic is 4.5 then you'll have a problem because half of 8.5 is 4.25 and it wont be centered. So you'll need to reduce or enlarge. When you've stepped horizontal, select both graphics at the top and select "step and repeat" choose 1 --0 horizontal and then 5.5 Vertical.

[JaCkinbOx]

jimking, I'm not sure if I followed your directions correctly, but does this look like what you were asking for?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v43/JaCkinbOx/template02.jpg

[jimking]

Yes it does. However, you need bleed. But before you do that double click the line tool in your tool pallet. Select "registration" as your color and .5 as your line width. Drag guides and place them at the trims. Selected your line tool again and at the upper left corner of the upper left image click and drag a line both for vertical and then horizontal trim. You'll end up with two small rules that are perpendicular (corner crop marks). Do not let these trim marks touch each other, keep them about .083 away from each other. Now you can select the vertical trim mark and "step and repeat" it two times and select the horizontal trim mark and step that once. For bleed, create a black box .125 larger than the 4 images equal together. .125 has to go beyond your outside trims, not the center trim because it's a chop cut. Place the box over your 4 images and send to the back.

[JaCkinbOx]

I didn't see anywhere where I could select "registration" as my color, but I think I followed the rest all right.

[jimking]

Black will do since its only black. Registration prints in all colors. Sorry I met step horizontal trim- two times.

[JaCkinbOx]

Okee dokee. I'll post another screenshot in a minute.