We'll use a US Business Card size for the design.
Set 0.125" equally around as bleed. This will be a one pager, so checking 'Facing Pages' is not needed.

Create an imposition for business cards, a folder with die cut, printer's marks. - image 1 - student project

Set your margins beside the bleed.
This will allow some more movement to the printer and the trimming and your business card won't look crowded. You may set some graphic elements off-margin intentionally, but I don't suggest that for content.

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In this case I'll set a digital rich black for the background and white text.

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Make sure your content fits inside the margins.

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Export your card as a print pdf.

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Set standard PDF/X-1a:2001 with the following settings:

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Make sure you use high resolution output if you have images in your artwork.

I like using Maximum JPEG conversion, it's almost never visible.
ZIP compression won't harm your designs but your file sizes will dramatically increase.

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Set your bleed settings. You may check Crop Marks, or leave empty, it doesn't matter in this case.

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Make sure your Transparency Flattener is set to High Resolution preset.

Create an imposition for business cards, a folder with die cut, printer's marks. - image 9 - student project

Now in our case the sheet that will be printed will be 12x18". You may set the sheet size based on what your local printing house supports. You may uncheck Facing Pages if you use a one page document.

Create an imposition for business cards, a folder with die cut, printer's marks. - image 10 - student project

Import your pdf without transparency, with the option 'Crop to Bleed' selected.

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Set the Reference Point to top left (see the icon beside the X and Y parameters).
Set the position of the card to X: 0, Y: 0. You can see the size of the card with bleed added next to the position of the card.

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Now select your card and use 'Step and Repeat'.
I'll repeat it twice horizontally using the bleed size.

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Now select all your three cards. You may group them as well.

Use 'Step and Repeat' vertically, as we did above but now with vertical bleed size. (Horizontal set to 0).

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Select all elements on the sheet, and group them.

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Check the size of the object.

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Set your document to this size, without bleed.

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Select your cards and align them to centre on the new document size.

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Now your document should look like this:

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With these position and dimensions:

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Add some bleed for your marks:

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Zoom in to the top left area.

Use the line tool to create a line that's 0.25pt's (0.3 is ok too).

Set it to process Black (K100)

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Position it to X0.

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You may change the size so it fits your bleed area nicely.

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This is an important step.

Change it's position to your bleed size. 0.125" in our case. This is where they'll trim the sheet with all the cards on it.

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Use Step and Repeat.
Use Horizontal Offset set to our business card's horizontal trim size. This is another place where they will crop the cards.

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Now select the two trim lines.

Use Step and Repeat again, but now with Count set to 2, Horizontal Offset set to your bleed size. (3.75 in our case)

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Select & group your marks.

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Hold down Alt & Shift, then duplicate them to the bottom bleed area.

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Now do the same with the vertical marks. Draw a new line and position it to your vertical bleed size.

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Duplicate it using Step and Repeat, with Vertical Offset set to your vertical trim size.

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Select the new two marks and duplicate them 6 times. Use your vertical bleed size.

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Select the newly created marks, and group them.

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Duplicate them to the right bleed area.

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You may check your Separations Preview to see if the color values are correct.

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You may also check if your imposition fits the sheet.

12x18" will be printed, so we're good with 11.65x16.15".

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Now Export your pdf.

Use similar settings as before.

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Create an imposition for business cards, a folder with die cut, printer's marks. - image 38 - student project

Make sure the bleed will contain your marks.

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Make sure your Color Conversion is correct.

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In our case we'll just use US Swop as a destination profile.

Click Export and enjoy your imposition. :)

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Now let's work on a folder with die cut and Spot UV varnish applied

Set up a new document with the size of the die cut plus some bleed. You don't have to set the bleed, you can calculate it into the page size as well. I'll only work on a one-sided document for now. My settings will be as follows:

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Set up three layers in the following order. Name the layers like:

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Create up two new Spot color swatches. Use the CMYK slider to choose any color that will stand out for you.
Name them to Die Cut and Spot UV Varnish.

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Create an imposition for business cards, a folder with die cut, printer's marks. - image 45 - student project

Select your layer 'Die Cut'. Paste or draw a vector that'll serve as your die cut. Use the 'Die Cut' swatch as your stroke color. You may use 0.3pt stroke width.

(Note: you may import it as an ai or eps file too, but in that case it's stroke should be either a spot color or 100k black depending on how you'll export the file. See more info on that later.)

You can download die cut shapes and vectors from all around the internet, but you can use my project files as well.

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Now select your layer called 'Design'. You may lock your 'Die Cut' layer.

Design something as you like. Keep in mind where your folder will be folded, trimmed and if it's a double sided design, where it'll overlap the other sides after folding. In our case I just used something extremely simple. The black is an offset black with two rotated lines going through it. A text with 'Design' was positioned to the bottom right of the front of the folder. It'll be trimmed, and I'll apply a spot UV varnish to it. Make sure your background and all your design elements use the bleed as your print operator requires it.

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Now on layer 'design' select the part that you want to add Spot UV varnish to.

In my case, that'll be the text 'Design'.

Copy that graphic of yours, and select your layer 'Spot UV varnish'.

Use Edit/Paste in Place to place it exactly above the original.

Now lock your layer called 'design' and select your newly created graphic element.

Make sure that it'll use 'Spot UV varnish' spot color as a fill and add 0,5 pt stroke to it using the same spot color. This will serve as our trapping for the varnish now.

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Now we'll export our graphic using two preferred methods.

Method one.

Make sure your die cut and your Spot UV layer's content is set to overprint, using the Attributes panel. In my case the Die Cut is an Overprint Stroke...

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...and the Spot UV varnish content is both an overprint fill & stroke (due to my trapping method).

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That's only required because without it, top objects will knock out our design's elements by default. We don't want our die cut shape visible as white on our design, for example.

Now with all layers turned to visible, export it to pdf. We'll use Acrobat layers for this method and due to that, we'll need at least 1.5 (Acrobat 6).

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You may include registration, or bleed (if you've set up your document like that).

Make sure that your images will export with at least 300dpi resolution, maximum jpeg or zip compression.

You may set up a Preflight setting before exporting to warn you about possible issues with image quality.

In our case, no image was used so it's not needed.

Make sure your Destination Profile is correct and your conversion will preserve numbers with spot colors.

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Export your design.

Now the exported file will use both spot colors and layers but it'll be possible for the press operator to turn on and off each of those as he wants to process the file.

Method two.

In this method, we'll export each layer separately so we'll have three pdf files at the end.

One for design, one for spot uv varnish, and one for die cut.

Start with the first layer, 'design'. Make sure you turn off the other two layers.

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Now you may use pdf/x1-a, since layers won't be needed.

Export your design layer, then turn off it's visibility.

Export your layer 'Die Cut', with even changing it's color to simple black/other process swatch or leaving it as your spot color. If you export it as a spot color make sure that you'll preserve numbers while you export.

Export your layer 'Spot UV varnish' with the other two layers turned off.

Create your own print marks

Create a new document for practicing. I'll use both bleed (0,125") & slug (0,35").

Slug will contain my marks.

Create an imposition for business cards, a folder with die cut, printer's marks. - image 54 - student project

Grab the line tool.

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Draw a continous, vertical line using 100%K, 0,25pt width. Hold down shift for creating a vertical straight line.

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Create seven more trim marks as you can see it here:

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In the top-left slug area, create two lines (can be same length as your trim marks) and a slightly smaller circle but with the registration color set.

Registration will be as you see it here (c100 m100 y100 k100).

Select these marks and align them to centre (not page centre, the objects should be centred to each other both horizontally and vertically). Group your new mark. Make sure this mark is outside the bleed area.

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You may set it more precisely:

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Now duplicate them to all four corners of the slug.

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Now we'll create color bars.

Grab your rectangle tool and create a 0,2x0,2" size rectangle that's in the slug.

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Select and duplicate it 10 times using Step and Repeat. These should be aligned vertically so vertical offset will be 0.

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Select your first sign and set it to c100 m0 y0 k0.

Set the stroke to 100k.

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Select the second bar and change it to c90% m0 y0 k0.

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Continue the steps above, until you reach c0 m0 y0 k0, so basically white or paper color.

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You may put a text box there too, telling your plate's color (and using only it's 100k ink).

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Now I've changed my document size because the marks didn't fit.

But you should do the same with each remaining plate as you did with the cyan plate.

Create 11 boxes and fill them with a plate's color (magenta, yellow or black) with every 10 steps used. Move or position them as you like in the slug area. (If there's space, you can duplicate them as well.)

Create an imposition for business cards, a folder with die cut, printer's marks. - image 67 - student project

Viktor Vigh

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