Business Cards

[webmanUK]

Hi All,

Simple question perhaps but I have created a business card in Illustrator 10 and wondered if anyone has any ideas how I can go about setting it up to print a sheet of business cards?

Thanks all

[RedWombat]

Welcome to the forum WebmanUK!

I don't think you can Tile the output like that in Illustrator. I could be wrong though.

You can Tile output, but that's limited. Usually it's if you want to take one image across multiple printed pages, not the other way around (many of the same images tiled across one page)

There is an action you can download from Adobe which will automatically Tile your business card on the Artboard for you. Then it's a matter of printing it.

Here's a link to it if you want to check it out:
http://share.studio.adobe.com/axAsse...e.asp%3Ft%3D26

I find all kinds of great information in the Adobe Studio Exchange.

It's to bad Illustrator doesn't do this. In Corel, this is a piece of cake!

Hope this helps you.

[Albacore]

Hi Webman,
First question is, "are you going to print it your self? Or are you goung to take iit to your local print shhop and get it done.
If you are going to do it your self then you could go to the Adobe Studio and download template as RedWombat suggested or you can buy Avery bix card sheets and download Avery's Design Pro and use that as your template and import your AI work in.
The right way to do it is to draw a rectangle 85mm x 55mm and fit your design in that if it has no colour right to the outside of the card. If it has then you will need to make another rectangle that sits surrounding the original 90mm x 60mm this is allowing for bleed. With the inner rectangle selected go to object and then down to crop and your crop marks will be drawn. Group your biz card, outer & inner rectangles and crop marks and then "Shift + ctrl + alt" click around the page dulicating your card. You should get at least 8 cards per A4 page but please remember that the card will need to be at least 184 gms. Sorry I forgot to say ungroup your card and turn you outer & inner rectangles into Guides so that they are nit printed.

If you want to take it to your local print shop give them a phone & ask what page size they print from, in the UK it is SRA 3 while the US it is A3+. Please also ask what format they would like the file to be in, normally it would be PDF as they may use an older version of AI than you. Also convert you text to shapes so that there is no problems with the fonts that you have used in your design. If you don't fancy doing all this work just take your single crad to them and they will set this up for you and it will cost about £10 to £30

[sallybode]

You can do your imposition inside of Illustrator if you so desire, but you should ask the printer the orientation of the paper and the gripper margin and if they have special cutting that requires a slitter for offset between the cards. The printer can supply in many cases the template for you or give you directions on making your own.

The first copy and move you can do in Transform/Move. However it is not as easy as DRAW. If you know your offset from the gripper margin, follow your setup directions then using Transform Move, tell it to move 0.0 in the horizontal and specify your measurement abbreviation, and the negative number in the vertical and to leave a copy behind.

With Illustrator's tools elsewhere than available when you are working on your drawing, it is in a dialog box. But it works. The most important measurement is your first one, lining it up on the page, from the gripper, the alignment palette, since the alignment palette does not allow you to align to page, you can create a rectangle your page size and then align them together, and using your grid, accurately position them. From that you can offset your gripper margin using move, then move and copy one, and use transform again as many times as you need.

Then if you are doing say a 12 up imposition, you have one column, just do the same thing in the horizontal plane. And be sure to add any marks the printer may need: bleed, trim or if they need registration, densitometer, the color marked on each plate.

In the United States, many printers work in inches other in picas, since Illustrator default is points on most measurements, you either have to change it in preferences or type it in as you go.

Often people prefer to do their imposition in another software because, it is a lot more difficult than it need be.

[RedWombat]

I guess we won't know if he wanted to print them himself or take it to press. It sounded like he wanted to print them himself to me. Hopefully he figured it out by now.

[xerxiux_x]

Thats a good question
and
So far they've given you some good answers.

Here's yet another way to go about it.

I (as you, and most of the planet) like to do my art in Illustrator. But then I also have a few other programs that are Illustrator's compitition, but they are able to do things that good ol Adobe hasn't yet seen fit to install into Illustrator.

So if you go to a program like one of these:
Print Master
Print Shop Deluxe (by Broaderbund)
Photo Impact (by Jasc)
Corel Draw ( I think this one has it too.)
Freehand (by Macromedia) (I could be wrong about this one)

but those programs all ship with Avery business card templates already installed. Most of them will work even if the numbers aren't exactly the same as what you have on the business card package.

See what I'm saying is that you can either go to your local K-Mart, Wallmart, Eckards, whatever.... and buy a packet of premade business cards that print out 10 to a sheet. They have some really nice textures, and papers to choose from. Once you have bought the premade business cards from Avery (which is the most popular one I think) then you can use one of the programs I mentioned above to print them out perfectly onto the business card sheets. I can even do it with my old Lexmark printer, and they come out looking pretty danm good if I say so mysef. Or you can also just print them out on photographic paper, and then buy those magnetic businesscard backs, and that too makes a good looking rather profressional business card. You can even just go to the Avery website, and download the plug-in, and use that to print out 10 per sheet onto photographic paper, or the Avery business card paper. They're precut, and sticky part is left on the part that you throw away, so you don't have raggity edges, and tacky backs like used to happen in the old days.

I almost forgot to mention that all the above listed programs, if you don't have one, even an old one, (they used to ship with alot of computer packages as standard free software, thats why I'm saying you might have them) you can always look them up on Google, and download them for 30 days, enough to make up your card template, and save it.

Good luck

"X"

[sallybode]

Those are great ideas, but PhotoImpact is by Ulead, PaintShopPro is by Jasc but now Corel owns it.

These days the artist works in industry, learns and practices at home at night. Picks up pointers on forums. Being more flexible I guess means people take you less seriously.

On the other hand, you can smile while you are making money every now and then. There is always also the customer who can't envision anything and you have to hand him a proof on the paper it will go to press on.

Illustrator takes itself too seriously. Lots of good ideas out there, and those who are wise encorporate them. If you don't use them, oh well.

[RaiderPower07]

I was wondering thr same thing, and the template download seemed to work. I also needed to print two sides to my business cards and I am not sure how to do that. ANyone have suggestions?

[Albacore]

As Illy does not use multi-pages, just use layers. So long as whoever is printing the output knows that the back is a certain layer you should be able to switch them off and on. Also use your guides as a layer as well to position the back and the only thing you have to worry about if your printing the Biz cards yourself is putting the paper in the correct way after printing the first side.

[GloucesterD]

Hi I have CS 2 suite, bit old i know but does what i need. I use in-design for setting out. just create logo in illustartor then paste in to in-design and export to using your printer settings for slug, bleed etc

regards Pete