ImposeIQ Photo Layout guide

Overview

Photo Layout takes one photograph and the sizes a customer ordered — say 6 of 10 × 13, 30 wallets and 20 4 × 6 — and lays every print out on press sheets that a Duplo DC slitter / cutter / creaser finishes in one pass, with the DC-ST100 In-Line Stacker stacking the output by size. It writes the press PDF, one Duplo DC job XML per layout and a job sheet for the operator.

The photo and the order

• Photograph: a JPEG, PNG or one-page PDF, or Use a sample photo. Click the picture to set what has to stay in every crop (a face); each size is cropped round it.
• Placement: Fill crops to cover the print with full bleed; Fit shows the whole picture inside a white border.
• Order: a line per size — wallet 2.5 × 3.5, mini wallet, 3.5 × 5, 4 × 5, 4 × 6, 5 × 7, 6 × 8, 8 × 10, 8.5 × 11, 10 × 13, 11 × 14, 12 × 18, the square sizes, or custom — and its quantity. A print runs the way the photograph does (a portrait photo prints portrait) unless the line says otherwise.

How the sheets are planned

• A DC slits the whole length of the sheet and cuts across its whole width, so a sheet is a grid: every print exactly fills the cell where its column meets its row, one way round or the other. A cell nothing fits is waste.
• The planner tries three ways — sizes sharing sheets where the grid allows, one size to a layout run until its quantity is made, and one size to a layout with a part sheet for the rest — and keeps the one with the fewest press sheets, then the fewest layouts (each layout is a DC JOB), then the fewest prints over the order.
• Every layout is checked against the chosen DC (DC-648, DC-746 or DC-618, from the Duplo finisher specs): the feed size, the slitters (two per gutter plus the edges), the 30 cuts, a column gutter of 0 or 5–15 mm, a row gutter of 0 or at least 3 mm, the 3.2–55 mm edge slitter margins, the lead and trail cuts, the 48 × 50 mm smallest piece. Twice the bleed gutters let every print keep its bleed and are raised to what the DC can drop.
• The tabs over the sheet step through the layouts; each shows how many sheets to print, its lanes, and where its output goes.

The DC-ST100 In-Line Stacker

The DC-ST100 connects to the DC-648 and the DC-746 (not the DC-618). Each lane off the DC becomes its own stack across the conveyor — three across as standard, five with the OPG-01 side guides — and two or more across need gutter slits. When the finished size or the slit positions change from one JOB to the next, the stacker moves to a new row of stacks by itself. So with the stacker on:

• each lane carries one size, there are at most three lanes (five with the side guides), and the column gutters are slit gutters;
• prints longer than 216 mm along the feed (a 10 × 13) cannot be stacked: they are planned on sheets of their own, routed to the delivery tray or the insert tray;
• the stock has to be 230–400 gsm; the job sheet works out the stacks from its thickness (40 mm high at most).

The stacker's own settings — ST100 Connection, Stacker setting, Space b/w rows, Repeat counter, preset counts — are kept in each JOB on the PC Controller (System → Exit), not in the job XML. The job sheet says what to set for each JOB.

Press PDF, job XML and job sheet

• Press PDF: one page per layout (or every sheet written out), the photograph embedded once and cropped into every print, with the DC REG mark and job barcode at the lead edge and a slug saying how many sheets to print.
• Marks on every sheet (Sheet and finisher): Job number in words under the barcode prints the DC JOB number in plain figures below the job barcode, so an operator can read it. Slug line runs along the trail margin with the job name, layout, DC JOB, what is on the sheet, the sheet number of the total, the output and the date. 2D code on every sheet adds a QR code or Data Matrix holding the PDF's file name and “Sheet n of total” (for example Photo order - press sheets.pdf | Sheet 3 of 11), in the lower right corner by default, placed the way the OMR Generator places its code (30 mm in from the right edge of the sheet, 4 mm up from the trail edge, 10 mm square); lower left or top left in the lead margin are there too. With the code in the trail, the trail margin grows to keep the prints clear of it, and the slug line stops short of it. The sheets are numbered straight through all the layouts. Because every sheet's code is different, the press PDF then writes every sheet out. A warning shows if the code will not fit the margin clear of the prints.
• DC job XML: one Duplo DuploDCJobTemplate file per layout — the format the Imposer and Book write — with a CutBlock for every print (its own size and position, in points from the bottom of the sheet), the REG mark and the barcode area. JOB numbers run on from First DC job number.
• Job sheet: every DC JOB, the sheets to feed, the output (stacker or tray), the stacker settings, and each lane's size, prints and stacks.
• Everything for the DC puts the press PDF, the XML files and the job sheet in one folder. Output from an unlicensed copy is marked DEMO.