Snapmarks issue maybe?

[BSheremeto]

Posting this here because it’s not really a support issue. I’ve been trying to get a file to work with snapmarks but so far no luck. I thought it might be the printer I was using so I’ve tried 3 different printers now and no dice. Still having an alignment issue on all printers. Here is a picture to show the issue; the cut should be right on the edge of the black and currently the top lines up well but the bottom is off to the right. It’s off on both sides but obviously it shows up more when it is leaving white rather than cutting extra black.

It does this on all the files I have tried (same layout but different cards). My current process is make inkscape file, turn off cut lines and save it as a PDF. Then Print that PDF and use my SVG file with the lines turned on and the pictures turned off to cut it. The PDF and SVG are attached. Could anyone with snapmark give this a try to see if it is just my machine or the file? Thanks.company card sheet backs.zip (9.3 MB)

company card sheet backs pdf.pdf (8.0 MB)

[evansd2]

Are you 100% sure your pdf is printing at the correct scale?

I actually have no idea if this would cause the issue, but I think that snapmarks are sensitive to this sort of thing. Sometimes pdfs scale funky on print, it’s where I’d start.

[BSheremeto]

Yep 100% sure, always had them print without scaling. Plus if the scale was screwed up I don’t think I would have the top and bottom lining up perfectly like they are.

[evansd2]

Yeah fair point about the alignment. Maybe someone who has been using snapmarks can chime in, i’m just an armchair detective, no snapmarks for me yet.

[jbmanning5]

So:

Either

A. The Snapmarks, when snapping are applying a bit of rotation to the design, maybe.

B. Your unit isn’t cutting square

C. ?

I would do another print and cut but score the Snapmarks before you run the job. That will show you how close it’s lining them up, any rotation it’s applying, etc.

[BSheremeto]

I don’t think it is A because I am not seeing it on the horizontal moves, just the vertical.

B maybe, but I have even put the sheets in at a 15ish degree tilt and still get the exact same angle (all sheets from the same printer) so that makes me think it isn’t the motion system.

C) all the printers I have tried are printing with a weird taper.

D) my process is inducing this weird taper effect.

Did a new test just cutting the cards rather than the outline and here is the result

[BSheremeto]

Just ran a score on the snapmarks on the same piece of paper, and it’s pretty much dead on. (.010-.004 off I would say). but the cards at the top are also very very even

[evermorian]

If the issue is only the white sliver, you could try over-printing the black (so that some black is deliberately cut off) …

[BSheremeto]

Not the issue, the issue is that the cut isnt aligned with the file. See my second image for why just having more black doesn’t work.

[evermorian]

Ah. Got it. I don’t have Snapmark. So, I don’t have any other suggestions. I was just thinking about how I handled small amounts of misalignment with other print-and-cut type things.

[BSheremeto]

Yea thats why I have so much bleed on the card images, but the misalignment is too much even for that.

If someone runs the file let me know. I made a few more files with different variables changed to try tomorrow at some point.

[chris1]

I wonder if the Snapmarks are too close together for it to get an accurate scale. You obviously don’t have a lot of options on that design, though.

[Bigjohn]

maybe turn everything sideways and put the snap marks on one of the LONG rows?

[jbmanning5]

Hmm.

One thought would be to check if the print is coming out of the printer square?

[chris1]

I tried your file and got similar, but different, results. It also showed a skew toward the bottom of the file, but mine went to the left where yours went to the right. This was visible in the GFUI as well as in the final result.

To see if it could be a discrepancy between the PDF and the SVG, I printed the SVG directly from Illustrator, but I got the same results:

Finally, I went back into Illustrator, deleted your Snapmarks, added them back in from the template, and moved them as far apart as I could reasonably get:

This time, when I printed and cut it, it pretty much split the line on all 4 corners:

I’m not sure whether separating the Snapmarks further made the difference, because obviously several variables were changed at once by my process. But I think it’s close enough now to work with.

In any situation like this, you really need to account for a little bit of slop by leaving a “bleed”. Don’t try to cut right up against the edge of the box or it’s going to be visible no matter how accurate the laser is.

[BSheremeto]

Thanks! The outside cut is really only to make sure I have two pieces the same size when gluing the sheet together (since paper size is not really consistent) then I can cut the cards already glued; not concerned about the black but just that I get good alignment.

So you can definitely see how much of a difference the snapmark location makes. I have a file to test tonight where I put them in the middle of the sheet but the same distance apart. We will see how that works out. I also left my lines in but super transparent to test using the same PDF to cut as print but I’ll test with the SVG and the PDF to see one change vs 2.

But for now, snapmarks work better in landscape it seems. Cool! I like testing.

p.s. I like your printers quality a lot better than the ones I have been using lol

[jbmanning5]

In my testing, I also did Snapmarks vertically in one of my designs (to conserve space since the design pretty much maxed out the cutting area).

The key to making it work was that the bottom Snapmark needed to be bumped slightly to the right of the top Snapmark, so that they weren’t in perfect alignment. IIRC, the top Snapmark had to be to the left; putting the top Snap to the right of the bottom Snapmark didn’t work. I know that when they were vertically aligned, it would actually flip my design.

[chris1]

p.s. I like your printers quality a lot better than the ones I have been using lol

I got this in January: https://amzn.to/2xChtq7

I print about 10 pages a year, so my old laser from like 15 years ago was still on its first toner cartridge and just wouldn’t die. But I wanted color, 2-sided printing and scanning, and up to legal size. This one ticked all the boxes.

[BSheremeto]

oh that’s a pretty nice printer. I’m looking at a pixma 100 just because cards are better looking on an inkjet but I have heard that lasers are better on label paper so I’m doing some testing. two business printers and one brother home laser printer haven’t really blown me away on colour quality.

[chris1]

We have that Pixma Pro-100, got it in 2015 with one of the perpetual rebate deals. They’ve been selling the same model for 5 years for a reason, it produces some really stunning photo prints on big paper. Anyone who’s into photography should have one of these, or something like it. I see the current deal at B&H is $119 after rebate, with a free pack of paper. It’s almost criminal not to buy that.