Expert: Ran - 11/30/2009

Question
hello, i am making some business cards and my background design overhangs the page margin.  How can I delete anything that overhangs the margin so that when I save my image I only get my business card and not everything seen on the screen?

Answer
This is quite a common task and there are a number of ways of dealing with it.

If you are preparing artwork with just one card, set your page size to 85x55mm. When you output your .pdf, everything outside the page will be trimmed off. Some printers want a couple of mm of bleed, in which case you could set your page size slightly larger, job done.

If you are setting up 8 or 16 cards on one A4 page, I recommend you get the first one *spot on* before duplicating it. You could either mask off the excess background by using a white square with a card-sized hole in it, or trim the background using the Trim tool (in X4, use Arrange/Shaping/Shaping to open the Shaping docker, then select Trim from the drop-down menu). Check Source Object, Uncheck Target Object. Select the your card's outline and then click the Trim button, and then click on the overhanging background. You will have to fanny around with it a few times to get the hang of it, but this will fix your problem eventually. Have fun!