PDF Pattern Series: Printing and Assembling Trimless Patterns
Setting up to print
This is just a tad different than the setup we had previously discussed in printing patterns at home. Like always, you want to use your Adobe reader to open your pattern. (You can get it here if you don't have it already.)
Once you have that open, click on the icon that looks like two pieces of paper hovering over one another. Its the lowest icon on the left sidebar. This will open your layers feature. By default, all sizes will be selected as well as "Trim - Letter/A4".
You will want to turn off the sizes you don't need so that only the size(s) you do need are visible. In addition, you'll want to deselect the trim option and turn on one of the trimless layers. As I print on a standard US printer, I chose Trimless - Letter, but you may need to A4, just choose the file that's right for you. When you've done that, your pattern piece pages should look like this on your screen:
Easy peasy, right? Now select print at the top of the screen. Use the handy little chart (that you can find at the beginning of all of our patterns) to print only the pages you need for your chosen options and size(s). Make sure the printer is set to one-sided printing (if you have this option) and select actual size to make sure your scale will be correct and hit the print button! Now you're ready to assemble!
Assembling trimless pages
Now that you have your printed pages, you're ready to assemble them! First, check your scale box to make sure everything printed correctly. It will be on the first page of your pattern with a little white box that reads 4cm x 4cm inside a larger grey box labeled 2.5" x 2.5".
Once you know your scale is right, it's really easy! Just line the edge of each page up with the line on the next. Here are two pages, you can see the one on the left will line up with the line down the side on the page to the right.
Just line it up, tape it, and keep going until you have no pieces left! No muss, no fuss! And most importantly, no trimming page edges!
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