[sarah-jones-12]

Hiya,

I'm a bit lost and hoping to clean some guidance of some more intelligent forum members! I currently print between 12 - 18 batches of A6 per week and my printer has said that if I print it on a work & turn basis I will be able to get a better price.

My understanding of work & turn is that they print one side and use the same gripper margins to then print the other. Firstly is this the case? Secondly and more importantly on work & turn am I able to mix and match the sizes of my designs for example

12 x A6
1 x A5
4 x business cards

or do they all need to be one set size?

Sorry my first post is a little long winded.

Sarah

[foxytom]

Hi Sarah,

It depends on how many plates the job uses and what stock your designs are on. If you can fit your work onto one plate and they are on the same stock then generally it doesn't matter

We normally ask for the artwork separately and plate it up as we see fit in terms of whether we run it with another job etc etc. ( I work a bit in a printers)

Dont know whether this helps you, i think ive confused myself tbh!

[Cooper]

I think you pretty much understand work and turn. Basically what they do is make one set of plates with the backs and fronts of your flyers all on the same plate. They print these plates on both sides of the sheet of paper so that the backs and fronts of the flyers line up. This means that instead of having to make eight plates for full colour flyers (four for the front and four for the back) they only have to make four (one set that contains front and back).

Effectively, you will get two flyers per design, so if you need 5,000 of each design on the sheet, the press only needs to run 2,500 sheets. This does mean that you can get fewer unique designs per sheet - you can fit 16 unique a6s on an SRA2 doing it sheet work, but only 8 unique A6s on an SRA2 doing it work and turn. If your press has a B1 press, then they could do 18 unique A6s work and turn.

You certainly can mix and match flyer sizes in this manner. The conventional layup method is to place the fronts of your flyers on the left hand side of the sheet and the backs on the right hand side. So, say you have an SRA2 sheet to print on, you effectively have an A3 worth of space to divide up into different size flyers (One half of the SRA2 for the fronts, one half for the backs). Within that space, you can divide it up into different size flyers as you see fit. So if you can fit 8 A6s on, you could fit 16 A7s or 4 A5s or a combination of 5 A6s, 1 A5 and 2 A7s etc.

However, remember that you can't surround a flyer with other flyers with no route in from the edge of the page for the cutter, so you have to square everything off; you can't go crazy paving odd size flyers all over the sheet. It is ok for a cutting line to only be accessible from one edge, though, so you can place two a6s alongside an a5, for example.

Hmm. I do this everyday so it's second nature too me, but I'm not really if this will make total sense or not.

[luxbrand]

Originally Posted by Cooper

I think you pretty much understand work and turn. Basically what they do is make one set of plates with the backs and fronts of your flyers all on the same plate. They print these plates on both sides of the sheet of paper so that the backs and fronts of the flyers line up. This means that instead of having to make eight plates for full colour flyers (four for the front and four for the back) they only have to make four (one set that contains front and back).

Effectively, you will get two flyers per design, so if you need 5,000 of each design on the sheet, the press only needs to run 2,500 sheets. This does mean that you can get fewer unique designs per sheet - you can fit 16 unique a6s on an SRA2 doing it sheet work, but only 8 unique A6s on an SRA2 doing it work and turn. If your press has a B1 press, then they could do 18 unique A6s work and turn.

You certainly can mix and match flyer sizes in this manner. The conventional layup method is to place the fronts of your flyers on the left hand side of the sheet and the backs on the right hand side. So, say you have an SRA2 sheet to print on, you effectively have an A3 worth of space to divide up into different size flyers (One half of the SRA2 for the fronts, one half for the backs). Within that space, you can divide it up into different size flyers as you see fit. So if you can fit 8 A6s on, you could fit 16 A7s or 4 A5s or a combination of 5 A6s, 1 A5 and 2 A7s etc.

However, remember that you can't surround a flyer with other flyers with no route in from the edge of the page for the cutter, so you have to square everything off; you can't go crazy paving odd size flyers all over the sheet. It is ok for a cutting line to only be accessible from one edge, though, so you can place two a6s alongside an a5, for example.

Hmm. I do this everyday so it's second nature too me, but I'm not really if this will make total sense or not.

That made my head hurt, but I'm going to keep reading it until it sinks in. Sounds valuable.

[badaboom]

why bother understanding how your printer prints ‘work & turn’, if they see that as the best way, then let them get on with it.

The only thing to worry about if you want to use the plates for future use – the job you need could be on the same plate as others that are not needed.

[Cooper]

Originally Posted by luxbrand

That made my head hurt, but I'm going to keep reading it until it sinks in. Sounds valuable.

It's a lot easier to explain with pictures, I think!

Originally Posted by badaboom

why bother understanding how your printer prints ‘work & turn’, if they see that as the best way, then let them get on with it.

The only thing to worry about if you want to use the plates for future use – the job you need could be on the same plate as others that are not needed.

For most projects, I'd agree. However, sometimes, such as the case where you are printing a mixed variety of different size flyers weekly it can sometimes be useful to simply know how much the printer is going to charge you for a certain number of sheets printed work and turn or sheet work and then being able to figure out yourself how to fit your flyers onto that sheet.

Besides which, a good designer should know as much about print as possible as it can make them a better, more efficient designer. For example, knowing how a press plans up a magazine, how many and which pages fit on a sheet together etc. means you can strategically plan single colour and full colour pages for maximum cost savings. Even just knowing how certain sizes fit onto a larger piece of paper can make the difference between being able to fit a design three up with a large piece of unused paper on each sheet and having to run 33400 sheets to get 100,000 copies or trimming a couple of millimeters off the design and being able to fit it four up snuggly and only having to run 25000 sheets to get 100,000 copies, which could represent a not insignificant cost saving in paper alone for your client.

[badaboom]

agreed Cooper, or you could be lazy and ask the printer to look for possible cost savings regarding altering page dimensions to fit sheets.....

....but when it comes down to it you may need to ask a printer for full print area and work out the most cost effective format yourself, as a lot of printers can’t think ‘outside the box’ to your specific design requirements.