Precise Margin Alignment for Printing Brochures, etc.

[StevenWWinters]

Is there a methodical way to set up a document for printing such that the margins on paper are equal and that duplex documents are aligned properly from front to back? For example, when printing a tri-fold brochure on 8 1/2 x 11 paper, you want the folds to be precisely at the center of the 3 panels and you want the 3 panels on the front to align perfectly with the 3 on the back if the document is duplex. Same issue if you are making a duplex flyer or brochure that is 1/3 of a letter sized sheet and want to print 3 to a sheet and cut.

I haven't done a lot of print work where I needed to be overly concerned with precision but when I needed to, it was mostly just trial and error to get close to the correct alignment. My experience is with desktop or network printers (not professional print services) and the printable area seems to vary widely from printer to printer.

Most recently I setup a print test file which is mostly just an equally space grid and some squares to test the print boundaries and alignment. The printer "edge to edge" options shifts things slightly, but doesn't really help such that the resulting printout is not accurately centered and hence alignment is off (on the color laserjet tested on).

So my question for those who've traveled down this path, is it purely trial an error or is there a more systematic method?

Using XDPro6.

[masque]

To an extent you are at the mercy of your printer and its ability to pull the paper through accurately.
If on a 11in x 8.5in sheet of paper landscape you would position your guides at 3.666in and 7.333in as I'm sure your aware, and make it identical for each side of the paper obviously.
If it were me I would position the content of each panel well in from the guide lines so as not to encroach on the folds.
I have to say I've done a few leaflets and short run menus of this type to A4 and not had too much trouble once I'd fine tuned the layout, though I'm working with A4 - 297mm x 210mm with guides placed at 99mm and 198mm, landscape.
I'm currently using a Canon inkjet and have few problems with acurate alignment.
Derek

[Hwy101]

Thanks Derek for the Info -I recently have been introduced to A4 (as in: that's what's used down here) LOL - Nice to know when needed!

[Albacore]

If you talk to your printer they would give the info. Most printers would tell you to leave around 4 mm free from graphics & text on both sides of the 1/3 of a page and it works for me. Also I do small runs of about 500 tri-folds brochure on a large format desktop laser in duplex mode and they all work accurately, within just over 1 mm, but when doing boderless printing on A4 laser I can get inaccuracies as you describe. So when doing a full colour brochure I always allow 2 mm for any inaccurate printing. When working with an A4 laser I always make my full colour brochure smaller than the full A4 paper and then use a guillotine to trim using crop marks to get my full colour sheet. Hope that helps!