Trimming

Trimming means cutting your printed sheets down to a specific finished size. You print on a sheet that’s larger than the final product, then cut away the excess.

Why trim?

There are a few reasons you might want to trim:

• Edge-to-edge printing. Most home printers can’t print all the way to the edge of the paper (see Printer Margins). If you want content running right to the edge of your finished page, print on a larger sheet and cut it down.
• A specific finished size. You might want an A5 booklet but only have A3 paper, or you might want a non-standard size that doesn’t match any paper your printer can handle.
• Cleaner edges. Folding paper introduces slight inaccuracies. Trimming the edges of a folded booklet gives you a neat, professional-looking result — this is how commercially printed books are finished.

How it works in Octavo

In the Imposition Type tab, the Finishing section lets you choose between Use whole media (no trimming) and Trim. When you select Trim, extra controls appear for setting the finished size.

How trim size works varies by imposition style. Some styles let you set either the finished page size or the full sheet size — whichever is more natural for what you’re doing. Others only offer one or the other. For example, Tri-Fold uses sheet-level trim (since “page” doesn’t quite apply to a folded brochure), while Saddle Stitch lets you specify either the page or the sheet.

You can also drag the trim boundary directly on the imposition preview — grab a trim edge and pull it inward or outward.

Bleed

If you’re trimming, you’ll likely want to set up bleed as well. Bleed extends content slightly beyond the trim line, so that when you cut the paper, any small inaccuracy in your cutting doesn’t leave a white sliver at the edge.

Enable bleed via the Add bleed outside trim option in the Imposition Type tab, which appears when Trim mode is active. A visual editor lets you set the bleed distance on each edge.

Crop marks

To help you cut accurately, Octavo can print crop marks — small corner lines that show exactly where to cut. You’ll find these in the Marks tab.

You can enable a trim border too — this puts a thin line precisely where you need to cut. This isn’t recommended if you’re using cutting tools that maintain a straight line; however, if you’re cutting with scissors, it may be better than the alternative!

Cutting methods

A paper guillotine gives the cleanest, most consistent results — especially if you’re cutting through several sheets at once. A rotary trimmer works well too.

If you don’t have either of those, a craft knife and metal straight edge on a cutting mat will do a good job. Even scissors work in a pinch, though it’s harder to keep a perfectly straight line.

For trimming the edges of a folded booklet (as opposed to cutting individual sheets), a guillotine is really the only practical option — you need to cut through multiple layers at once. Commercially, this is called three-knife trimming, where the top, front, and bottom edges of a bound book are each cut in one pass.