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Imposition and nesting · for the print room

Imposition and nesting, straight from the print-ready PDF

Drop a print-ready PDF. Its trim, bleed and cutter are read off the file; choose how it is cut and on what, and take away the print sheet, the cutter file and the plan — every file named with the job number, made in the browser.

The problem

How many up, and is the cutter printing?

Working out a layout by hand — the sheet, the bleed, the gripper, which way the pieces turn — is slow, and a cutter drawn on a spot colour nobody noticed ends up printed on the job.

How it works

Imposition and nesting, step by step

  1. 01

    Drop the PDF

    Trim, bleed, the cutter and its creases and perforations read off the file — from named spots and layers, or found by shape.

  2. 02

    Say how it is cut

    Profile or square, guillotine or digital cutting table, single or double cuts.

  3. 03

    Pick the sheet

    Sheets grouped by press, with a better sheet suggested when one would hold more.

  4. 04

    Take the files

    The print sheet, a cutter file with register marks, and a job ticket — all named with the job number.

What it does

Imposition and nesting: what it does

Cutters found however they are drawn

CutContour, Thru-cut, Kongsberg and many more names, on spot colours or layers — or a closed shape when nothing is named.

Shapes nested, not boxed

Cut-to-shape work staggered and interlocked head to tail, each piece printed only to its cut line and bleed.

Versions and kits

Runs of versions dealt from a run list, and kits of different page sizes laid together on one sheet.

Big graphics split

A wall-sized graphic split into roll drops with overlap, or into panels with bleed for board.

Stitched booklets

Pages paired onto leaves, blanks added to make up the fours, and creep allowed for the paper.

Die lines off the print

The client’s own cutter is taken off the printed sheet and lives in the cutter file, where it belongs.

Questions

Imposition and nesting: what people ask

Which cutting tables does the cutter file suit?

The cutter file carries cut, crease and perforation lines on their own separations, with register marks for the camera — the kind of file a Kongsberg or a similar digital cutting table reads.

Can it plan a saddle-stitched booklet?

Yes. Pages are paired onto leaves, blanks are added to make up a multiple of four, creep is allowed for the paper, and every spread on a sheet is the same leaf so the cut stack comes out collated.

Does our artwork leave the browser?

The file is read once by the server for its boxes and cutter, and nothing is kept; the sheets themselves are made in your browser.

Can it plan a wall graphic bigger than the material?

Yes. A big graphic is split into roll drops with an overlap for the fitter, or into panels with bleed for board, with a fitter’s map of where each piece goes.

Works with

Licensed on its own, better together

Every module shares one estate and one sign-in, so adding the next is a decision, not a migration.

Print estimating

Size and quantity in, a priced press plan out, and a job bag raised onto the schedule.

Production scheduling

The press floor planned by machine and day, with job bags scanned straight onto the plan.

Packaging in 3D

The cutter guide read from the press file and the artwork folded into a box on screen.

Artwork versioning

A press-ready version of the artwork for every row of a spreadsheet, fonts untouched.

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  • Your estate structured before you first sign in
  • Licence only the modules you need — add more when they earn their place
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