Cutting cards using crop/cut marks - CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 - CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4

Cutting cards using crop/cut marks

I wonder; how or what sequence does one use to cut business cards from a sheet using crop marks.

For example, using the card that Jeff Harrison created in this thread <click me> second post, from a 2 x 4 sheet.

Back in my preretirement days I used to print 3 x 4 )12 up) on letter
size, and I cut thousands over a ten year period on an "armstrong" style
cutter that was as old, or older than I was (ISTR it was from Toronto
Type -- my father had a good laugh as he recalled that company when he
was VP of a large, hot metal type company in 1948. The thing weighed
about 500 pounds, had a screw activated backstop, and a screw activated
(very big screw!) clamp. Could slice a couple of hundred pieces of paper
or card stock with one might slam of its "armstrong" lever.

Anyway I kept changing the order of cutting until I got it right. The
objective was to try to have something large until the end. BY THE WAY
only have ONE sheet with the crop marks!!!! Or, better yet, cut by
dimensions and not have crop marks at all. Fortunately my two Lexmark
laser printers printed accurately, as did Canon inkjets (I won't discuss
the Epsons which I trashed -- they were a pathetic joke.)

So my first operation (3x4) was to set the backstop to 10.75 to crop
1/4" from the top, then set 1o 10.5 to crop the "bottom.

Similar 8.25 and 8 to chop 1/4 inch from each side.

Then 4" to cut down the centre, leaving two strips of cards on each
side. Then usually 2" to cut both those. NOTICE the centre cut first to
minimize cumulative error!!!!! NEVER cut from just one side when you
have an even number of strips--i.e. don't cut 2" three times!

Notice you now have stacks of 3 3.5" cards in strips. This is important,
assuming there is a side guide on the cutter. Set cut to 3.5" VERY
CAREFULLY. Snug up to the side guard because you only have a short 2"
end to snug up to the back stop.
Cut from one end that 3.5", rotate and cut the second end to 3.5" (again
to minimize cumulative error).

I was reasonably successful in cutting that way on the armstrong cutter
described above.

As a side note, before retiring and for about 15 years we had up to
three jobs a year that required printing as over 12,000 sheets of paper
(all different) in a single day, and binding those into hundreds of
booklets (again all different--personalized schedules for people
attending or exhibiting at trade shows with as many as 54 appointments
over 2 days).

I had noticed at a small print shop that was both a client and supplier
a fairly small man breeze in and out without saying a word to anybody,
and go over and immediately start cutting sheets he carried in on a
power operated cutter and walk out, again usually without saying a word
to anybody. All I knew about him was he was retired.

When I finally acquired the "armstrong" cutter and was able to move the
printing and binding for the above mentioned jobs in house instead of at
another print shop several blocks away, I arranged for him to work with
us the days we had those jobs on the floor. The precision of his cuts
was amazing -- I found he made robust templates for each cut from the
samples of the job we provided first thing in the morning. In those
years I only saw him make a mistake once (wrong orientation of cut).
What I found was that for something like 35 years before he retired his
ONLY job had been as a cutter operator at a mid size printing firm!

BTW the reason for moving the cutting and binding in house was the the
schedule was razor thin. Last data for the job received about 7 o'clock
in the morning, (yes, the morning--cannot start any aspect of production
until last data received!); FedEx pickup at 3:30:00.00 in the afternoon.
When the cutting and binding was a few blocks away, and remember EACH of
those 300 books was different!--you can imagine the problems if so much
as a single sheet was mis-cut! Or the wrong cover was applied. Or the
cover slipped while being stitched with the booklet contents. Or the
wrong cover was applied (again each of the hundreds of booklets was
different). After moving the binding in house, we could simply make a
new booklets in a matter of minutes, very different to when we had to
make repeated trips of several blocks, all the time feeling the FedEx
pickup getting closer and closer.

BTW Corel Draw and Ventura were used for quite few things -- the covers
made in Corel Draw and then commercially printed, floor layouts from
Corel Draw and run (the day before) on a laser printer, name cards from
Ventura, a couple of other portions of the common data from Ventura, the
descriptive data from two versions of Word Perfect--the job was a blend
of those programs and a heavy duty data base processor with embedded
custom application(s) on a Data General mini (MV2000, 2500, 5500
depending on the era.)

On 2/17/10 01:05, Jack Ross wrote:
> I was refering to the number of cards on a 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper.

--
Paul McGee
St. Albert, Alberta Canada