Thinking About Paper: Margins

In letterpress, it’s a great idea to think ahead of the printing process — from your digital prepress to ink colors and, of course, your paper selection.

Clients often ask us about our popular paper trimming services (see our Trimming section for prices), and we encourage them to plan their press sheets to include a minimum of an extra 1/2 inch margin for the guide and gripper on the press.

This allows any type or graphics — especially those that bleed off any edges — to have adequate space on the sheet before the printed press sheets are trimmed to their final dimensions.

To be safe, we encourage you to include extra wiggle room on all four sides of the sheet (not only the guide and gripper edges) for you to position the plate properly on the press.

Remember, we offer two types of paper trimming services:

• Break down parent sheets into press-sized sheets – $35
• Break down parent sheets into press-sized sheets + trim your printed sheets to the final dimensions – $50