Business Card Design and Printing Tips - Part Two

Read part one of Business Card Design Tips.

Keeping Your Costs Down and Your Quality Up

I don’t use expensive pre-scored stock you can buy to make business cards; nor do I use the pre-formatted business card designs that come in many graphics programs like Print Shop.

I find that the pre-scored paper never makes nice clean edges when separated; so I use 225 gram cardstock and cut the cards myself using a paper cutter.

This also affords me a wide choice of cardstock colors. I keep white and ivory on hand because they are the most popular and versatile for calling cards.

You can get ten cards to an 8 ½ by 11-inch sheet and can orient the cards vertically or horizontally.

To lay out ten duplicate cards on the sheet, it is very helpful to use guidelines. If you don’t know about guidelines, get out your software’s manual or use the Help feature that may be provided onscreen.

Or just follow the tutorial that follows.

Using Guidelines to Position and Size Your Work

These directions are for laying out ten horizontal 3 ½ by 2-inch business cards using Print Shop.

Open a blank sheet with Portrait (vertical) orientation.

If you don’t see rulers at the top and left sides of your workspace, click on View; and then click on Rulers and Guides.

To create guidelines in Print Shop, you simply put your cursor directly on one of the rulers at the top or side and click. A blue guideline will appear on the screen. This does not show on your printout. It only helps you size and position your work.

If you didn’t get your guideline positioned exactly where you want it, it is easy to adjust. Move the cursor over the guideline until a double line appears kind of like brackets on both sides.

Now you can simply slide the cursor either direction to move the guideline; or you can click on the arrow keys for very small moves. Should you want to remove a guideline, just grab it as above and move it off the design space. Poof – it disappears.

Look at the top ruler and you will notice that it is not 8 ½ inches like the paper you will print on. My top ruler is 8 ¼ inch because my printer requires at least a 1/8-inch margin on each side.

Place a guideline in the middle of the top ruler; for me that is at 4 1/8 inches. Then place guidelines 3 ½ away from the center guideline on either side. You now have two columns the width of your business cards. It is good to center you layout in case you want to do a two-sided business card.

It’s not necessary to center the cards from top to bottom because, even if you are printing on both sides, the paper will be fed through the printer from the top. I start my horizontal guidelines at ¼ inch and then space the others two inches further down, i.e. at 2 ¼, 4 ¼, 6 ¼, 8 ¼ and 10 ¼.

Create your design in one of the top rectangles. Test it on scrap paper. You want to be sure the print is large enough to be legible and that your get the colors on paper that you chose on screen.

[If the colors are off, check your printer manual for how to adjust. That’s a whole other lesson.] When you’re satisfied with your business card design, group the elements by lassoing them with your cursor, right click and choose Group. Copy and Paste.

Move the copy into the adjacent rectangle and let it snap to the guidelines.

Of course you want the design centered in the rectangle (as you designed the first one). Snapping to guidelines gets the card close to where you want it and makes the fine-tuning easier.

Precise Positioning in Print Shop

You can visually line up your ten business cards on the sheet or let the computer do it for you. No matter how good your eye is, the computer can do it better.

At this point, you have your original card design positioned exactly where you want it in one rectangle of the top row and a copy pasted into the adjacent rectangle.

The copy isn’t positioned yet. It is just snapped to the guidelines for approximate placement. Right click on the original and select Position to learn its exact coordinates.

The sample I’m using to write this tutorial is positioned at Horizontal 0.622 and Vertical 0.319. Write your coordinates down.

Click on the copy and check its coordinates. Mine is at H 4.109 and V 0.317. You want the Vertical coordinate to be the same as the original (i.e., exactly at the same level). You want the Horizontal coordinate to be 3 ½ inches away from the original. If I add 3.5 inches to the H coordinate I jotted down, I get 4.122.

Notice how close the coordinates of the copy are to what I want. That’s because we used the guidelines for a close approximation. Now all I have to do is edit the H number from 4.109 to 4.122; and the V number from 0.317 to 0.319.

You won’t need to go through this process for eight remaining cards. Here’s why. You can group and copy!

Group the two cards you have perfectly placed in the top row. Copy; then Paste them twice. Move the copies to the guidelines for rows two and three.

The math is easier from now on. My H number is always the same – 0.622. Just add 2 to the V number. For me that’s 2.319 and 4.219.

Next shortcut: lasso and Group rows two and three; Copy and Paste. Move this group of four business cards to the guidelines for row 4; then correct the coordinates.

To complete the example, my coordinates for the last four cards are H 0.622 and V 6.219.

For more articles on designing and printing cards or using graphics software programs, visit Computer Crafting.

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