N-Up Pdf export

[GeirSol]

Hi!

 

I have a A3 poster that I'd like exported for external print, A3 paper
With bleed.
 

A3 to A3 is fine,
but I'd also like 2-up for printing A4 on A3
and 4-up for printing A5 on A3.

Now I managed to get the N-Up working, it doesn't print my bleed. Crop-marks are there, but no bleed.

Normal export 1-up shows bleed fine. How do I do this correct?
Here are my settings.

[DWright]

Is it possible for you to post your Affinity document so I can look into this for you

 

[PaulEC]

 

4 hours ago, GeirSol said:

I have a A3 poster that I'd like exported for external print, A3 paper With bleed.

If you want to print an A3 poster the paper you print it on will have to be larger than A3 to allow for the bleed and crop mark area.

As I understand it, N-Up places a given number of copies of a document on a particular size of paper. So, for example, if you start with a sheet of A3 and place four copies of your A5 document on it they will actually end up smaller than A5 as there has to be space to print the bleed and crop marks etc. You will need to use oversize paper to allow for the A5 doc with the additional space the bleed area takes up around each copy. However, as far as I know, there is no way to set an exact size for each of the four images when printing N-Up, as they are simply fitted to the sheet/paper size.

[GeirSol]

3 hours ago, DWright said:

Is it possible for you to post your Affinity document so I can look into this for you

 

That will be in pm. Sending now.

[GeirSol]

3 hours ago, PaulEC said:

 

If you want to print an A3 poster the paper you print it on will have to be larger than A3 to allow for the bleed and crop mark area.

As I understand it, N-Up places a given number of copies of a document on a particular size of paper. So, for example, if you start with a sheet of A3 and place four copies of your A5 document on it they will actually end up smaller than A5 as there has to be space to print the bleed and crop marks etc. You will need to use oversize paper to allow for the A5 doc with the additional space the bleed area takes up around each copy. However, as far as I know, there is no way to set an exact size for each of the four images when printing N-Up, as they are simply fitted to the sheet/paper size.

Ok, strange. I do of course expect A3 1-Up with bleed and crop-marks to be scaled down to get it all inside the margins. And that what it does when eg. exporting to pdf.
And I would expect the same scaling for A5 4-Up on A3.

[PaulEC]

That's OK - It was just that you were talking about A3, A4, A5 etc, so I assumed that they were the finished sizes you wanted. Normally you would print on oversize paper, but obviously there's no problem if you are happy to have the finished posters slightly undersize.

[GeirSol]

19 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

That's OK - It was just that you were talking about A3, A4, A5 etc, so I assumed that they were the finished sizes you wanted. Normally you would print on oversize paper, but obviously there's no problem if you are happy to have the finished posters slightly undersize.

Are oversized paper standard for commercial print?

[PaulEC]

I'm no expert on commercial printing, but in my experience (with designing posters, leaflets etc,) yes, they normally print on oversize sheets, then trim to the correct size.

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[GeirSol]

13 minutes ago, lacerto said:

I tested N-Up with four A5 sheets with 3mm bleeds using a custom A3 Plus sheet (350 x 500mm), and it works ok:

 

Thanks for the detailed test! I'm not really comfortable with that hack.
So, just one pdf 1-Up export seems like best to me, then yes Adobe Reader sides 1,1,1,1 4-Up.

[PaulEC]

Going back to the original problem.

It seems to work OK using PrimoPDF virtual printer. (The yellow area is the bleed.)

[Edit: I set the Paper Size to A4 but if you set it to A3 it just scales the whole thing up!]

 

[thomaso]

On 6/9/2022 at 5:35 PM, GeirSol said:

I do of course expect A3 1-Up with bleed and crop-marks to be scaled down to get it all inside the margins. And that what it does when eg. exporting to pdf.

Yes, also here on mac the paper content gets scaled down according to the settings.
– But no, that is not the case on PDF export: then the file dimensions get increased for bleed + marks while the layout document's page size is maintained.

Since @PaulEC in Windows + me on mac do get the bleed as expected I wonder whether your issue is a matter of the preview only. The preview in your screenshot doesn't seem to have the marks though they are ticket in your settings screenshot. Also I would expect at east a fine white line for your 3 mm H / V Gaps. – Did you actually print or "print to PDF" to check the result, – or judge by preview only?

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[GeirSol]

10 hours ago, thomaso said:

 Did you actually print or "print to PDF" to check the result, – or judge by preview only?

Yes, I printed to pdf. And there was no bleed.

[PaulEC]

5 hours ago, lacerto said:

(like Primo, mentioned above, or PDF-XChange Light, both allowing specifying custom page sizes, but both producing RGB PDFs).

I'm not sure if this solves the CMYK/RGB problem, but in Primo's custom settings, you can untick "convert CMYK to RGB".

[lacerto]

Obsolete.

[PaulEC]

2 hours ago, lacerto said:

No, it does not. Because it would need an opposite feature, since Affinity Publisher first forces everything to RGB.

Thanks for the info. I had assumed that if a new document was created in APub using a CMYK/8 profile then "printed" as a PDF with Primo, telling it not to convert it to RGB, it would end up as CMYK. I hadn't realised that APub still converts the doc to RGB at some point. 

[lacerto]

Obsolete.