If you print anything in quantity (business cards, labels, flyers, stickers) the single biggest cost lever is how many you fit on each sheet. Working that out is called imposition, and getting it right is the difference between a job that pays and one that wastes half your paper.
The basic idea
You have a large sheet (say SRA3) and a small finished item (say an A6 flyer). Imposition is arranging as many copies of the item on the sheet as will fit, so each sheet you print and cut produces the most finished pieces. More pieces per sheet means lower cost per piece.
Orientation matters more than you think
The same item often fits a different number of times depending on whether you lay it portrait or landscape on the sheet, and sometimes a mix of the two fits more than either alone. It is worth checking all three, because the best layout is not always the obvious one, and a few extra pieces per sheet adds up fast over a run.
Leave room for bleed and cutting
- Bleed: if your design runs to the edge, it needs to extend slightly past the cut line so a tiny misalignment does not leave a white sliver.
- Cutting gaps: a guillotine needs a little room, and every cut has a small margin of error. Cramming items edge to edge leads to trimmed-off content.
- Finishing: folding and binding have their own rules, but for flat items, yield and clean cuts are the main concerns.
Plan the cuts, not just the layout
A layout that fits is no good if it cannot be cut cleanly on a guillotine, which only makes straight edge-to-edge cuts. The best plan packs the most items and reduces to a sensible sequence of straight cuts.
The sheet layout planner does all of this for you: enter your sheet and item sizes and it tries portrait, landscape and mixed layouts, picks the best yield or the fewest cuts, and draws a guillotine-safe cutting plan with the cost per piece. Handy whether you are quoting a job or just trying not to waste paper.