4. Grid Settings
Click the Next button, or choose Grids from the dropdown menu.
PowerLayout Client
4
In the Grid Settings panel, you will construct the layout of your step and repeat file. Before you do this, you should have an idea of how and which documents you want to use, and how many repeats you need for each document.
One-up
Start by selecting the document you want to use as first one-up file in the one-up dropdown list. All currently open documents are listed here, plus an extra placeholder option if you do not want to select a specific one-up yet. Use the placeholder to make template step and repeat schemes for later use.
Size Choose between Document Trim Box (borders) and Artwork Bounding box. You can adjust the
Document Trim Box (borders) with the Trim box and Media Box plug in.
Mask for Bleed The one-up will be masked on the Document Trim Box or Artwork Bounding Box if the value is set to 0 mm. Depending on the value set as bleed your one-up will be extended with the bleed distance. All the objects outside the Document Trim Box or Artwork Bounding Box + bleed distance area will be masked out.
7
4
PowerLayout Client
Rotation Select a rotation for your one-up. If you choose to alternate the one-ups (see below) the chosen rotation will apply to the top-left one-up.
Repeat Choose a repeat number and the gap between the one-ups, horizontal and vertical. The gap is specified between the one-ups without the bleed. On the PowerLayout Client output, if you have specified a bleed distance, the gap will be smaller than what you have entered here as gap. Note that the bleeds of two adjoining one-ups will never overlap. If necessary, the bleed distance will be smaller than what you have specified.
Alternate If you choose the alternate option, every second row, be it horizontal or vertical, will have the one-ups 180 degrees rotated. Use this option to get head-to-head repeats. The alternate option will be visible in the little preview pane of the final step& repeat scheme as a darker blue representation color for the rotated one-ups.
Fit around cylinder (for Continuous Printing) If you click the Fit around cylinder button, the appropriate gap will be filled automatically to fit the specified number of steps around the cylinder.
Enter the cylinder circumference as the sheet height.
Position The Position dropdown list for the first grid you make only contains the Align to Sheet option.
When an extra grid is made, all previously defined grids will also be available in the Align to… list.
So start with the grid that is the easiest one to align to the sheet.The icon showing the ‘Align to’ position can be clicked. You will notice that there are several alignment options: top-left, middle-left, middle, bottom-right, etc… which are all visualized clearly in this alignment icon. Starting from this position you can get extra positioning options to shift the grid, depending on what alignment you choose in the Alignment icon.
Add/Remove Grid icons
At the bottom of the grid list on the left of the PowerLayout Client palette, you notice two buttons with a plus and a minus icon.
Click the plus icon to define a second grid. You can use the same one-up input document to stagger it, or you can choose a different open document as the one-up.
The default position of the new grid will be centered to the sheet size. Change this position anytime in the Position icon and ‘Align to’ drop down list.
Tip:
To align the grid you are working on to a previously defined grid, ALT-Click the target grid in the grids preview pane. The Align to dropdown will jump to the clicked grid.
Click the minus icon to delete the grid you are working on. If other grids where aligned to the grid you are removing, their alignment will now be to the sheet.
Adjust Height to When "Automatically adjust height" is chosen while setting up "Plate & Sheet" the
"Adjust Height to" dropdown list becomes available. This allows you to define on which grid the height of the 'Plate Size' and 'Sheet Size' will be based.
8
