Print Boundaries?

[whimsywhim]

Hello,

I'm a little confused regarding print boundaries (gridlines in the work area) and what is shown to the public.  

For example, let's say there is a flower that is beyond the green gridlines.  It seems that means not all the flower will show up in printing.  However, the final product available to the public shows the entire flower.  

Which one will be printed?  Half the flower or the full flower?  

Thank you!

[Cat]

My understanding is that the blue line is what they're aiming for in terms of the edge of the design, so the previews show the design extending to the blue line.

The green and red lines indicate a margin of error, which I think apply more to printed paper products than others because they are generally printed on a huge sheet and then cut to size which means that the edges are not always going to be the same from one printing batch to another. So to be safe you want to put all important info inside of the green line, and extend your backgrounds beyond the red line.

I don't know enough about how other types of products are printed to understand exactly what the lines mean in those contexts, but I generally try to follow the above mentioned procedure.

Here's the help file on that topic: Design "Safe" and “Bleed" Guidelines – Zazzle Help Center

[Echo]

I saw this on Youtube:

https://youtu.be/FL8xThyfLTg

[whimsywhim]

I very much appreciate all the information.  It greatly helps!

Another question, please - let's say one is designing a guest book or a thank you card.  There is a photo on the left-hand side and words on the right-hand side.  How does one center the text?  (Sometimes, the guiding line doesn't show up).  

So do you line the text (side to side) from the edge of the photo to the green dash border or to the blue border?  

Thanks so much!

Edited to add:  It's a little disconcerting to watch that video and see that what Zazzle shows as the "proof" can be so off.  The proof should be what is the final product to the customer.  There should only be very slight variation not such a big difference as the video showed.  I've been going off that final proof!

[Cat]

Not entirely sure I understand the question. I think you're asking how to center the text within a section of the design... something like this?

For those situations I would first group any elements that need to be considered as one thing in terms of centering (like the word "and" and the lines around it, and the columns of numbers in the calendar & heart.) Then I'd select all of those text elements and choose center to selection - that will center all of the chosen elements to each other rather than centering them to the artboard:

Once I've got them centered to each other, I move the whole lot as a group (just keep them all selected and move them all together) and just eyeball it in terms of where the whole lot of it should go in terms of the overall design - aiming to keep the whole design pretty much centered inside the blue lines but still within the green. Then, for this design, I'd be sure to ungroup the calendar stuff so the customer can easily customize it and move the heart.

Hope I understood and hope that helps!

[1234Shine]

@Cat , Is "Detail-Oriented" your middle name?

[Cat]

@1234Shine Bwahahahaha! You mean "compulsive" don't you? 😄

[whimsywhim]

Wow!  Yes, this is what I was getting at.  I've done the centering one at a time, but this seems more efficient, and I don't get confused on whether I should center to the green line or the blue line (when the centering line doesn't show up).  Thank you greatly!!