Cutter guides

When creating a cutter guide the first step is to ensure that your artwork or document size is that of the cutter guide at its full extent, for example with glue flaps or fold out edges.

For example, if your artwork is as illustrated below, the page should be the outer most points of the cutter.

Always ensure that your cutter guide is set up as a spot colour, and call it Cutter, or Cutter Guide to indicate to repro that this is the area you wish to be trimmed out. You may make the guide any colour you like. Try to ensure that it is clearly visable over the artwork that is being printed.

The page size is particularly important if your artwork backs up, such as a folder, with an inner and an outer printed area.

 

You can download this example as a PDF.

Spot UV Guides

Spot UV guides follow the same principles as the above, however the guide should be called 'Spot UV'. If the spot UV is being overlayed on text or something else that is also being printed, you can create a duplicate of the item and change the colour to the new 'Spot UV' colour and overlay (possibly using layers if you wish). When the artwork is converted at printing stage the spot UV will not knockout the items to be printed beneath.