Print layout calculator
How many copies of a design fit on a sheet, which way round they go, and what the sheet looks like. This runs BoboCreate's own layout code — the same function the app uses when it prints more than one to a page, so the answer here is the arrangement you will actually get.
How the fitting works
What repeats across the sheet is the design plus its bleed — a 5 × 7 in card with 0.125 in of bleed takes up 5.25 × 7.25 in. The sheet is divided into equal cells of that size and a copy is centred in each, so whatever space is left over is shared evenly as margins and gutters.
Copies are turned a quarter turn whenever that fits more of them. Two 5 × 7 cards do not fit upright on Letter — 2 × 5.25 in is 10.5 in across an 8.5 in page — but turned on their sides they do.
Trim marks are counted once, not per copy
This is the part that is easy to get wrong, and getting it wrong changes the answer. Trim marks need a margin, but only at the edge of the sheet. Where two copies meet in the middle, a mark runs into its neighbour's bleed — which is cut away anyway.
Reserve a quarter inch around every copy and two 5 × 7 cards want 11.5 in of an 11 in sheet, so you are told one fits. Reserve it once at the edge and they fit, which is what actually happens on paper.
Where this goes wrong
- Forgetting the bleed in the arithmetic. Four 4 × 5 in cards look like they fit Letter exactly. With bleed they are 4.25 × 5.25 in and they do not.
- Printing to the edge of the paper. Most home printers cannot. If your design has bleed and your printer has a margin, print on a larger sheet and trim.
- Scaling to fit in the print dialogue. "Fit to page" silently resizes the design, so a 5 × 7 card comes out at 4.8 × 6.7. Print at 100%.
In BoboCreate this is the Print more than one to a sheet box in the PDF export, under a page size. It shows the same count this page does, because it is the same code.