Help needed - borderless printing on A4

Hello, I'm wondering if someone can help me out and give me some proper advice. Forgive me if I've gone totally the wrong way about this.

I'm trying to print four A6 size postcards on one A4. I've designed the postcards in photoshop sized (width) 105mm and (height) 148mm at 300dpi.

I then save the file to a PDF then open it up in preview on Mac. I set the paper size to A4 borderless (210 x 297) then select 4 copies per page.

(As shown here)

However, when printing a test run, it is cut away (cropped) from the top and the bottom of the page.

(There should be a line at both the top and the bottom of the page as seen in the preview mode above before printing)

Logically thinking, I want to save on paper by printing four A6 designs on one A4 and guillotining the design to make four equal A6 postcards with no paper waste and ideally no margins.

If anyone could help I'd massively appreciate it. Maybe there's an easier way to do this? I'm a total novice.

Thank you for your time.

Note - I'm using a Canon Pixma ix6850

Why don't you make a photoshop file with the 4 postcards stepped up - and print that?

What do you mean by stepped up? If you're meaning copying the cards four times in one document, wouldnt that be more hastle? There's text on the cards that I'll be customising each time so that would mean editing the text four times for each card everytime I do so. Surely there must be a way to print four A6 designs onto an A4 with no margins (edge to edge).

There is - but I'm trying to take the hassle out of it for you - I didn't know there was text customising on it.

What I would do is set them up in 1 file as you want them to print.
Then print the 1 side.

Setup the text in a different file.
Insert paper the other way
Print the text.



However, I do notice that you have Scale to Fit - you should change that to 100% instead.

I'm only really printing on one side. To be honest, it's more of an invitation than a postcard thinking about it. I tried changing the scale to fit to 100% and still i get the same result with the design cropped from top and bottom slightly as shown in the pictures above.

I'd imagine it's a limitation of the printing software of Canon.

I'd still go the route of planning them up in Photoshop or other software to ensure they print correctly.

That is a possibility. Maybe I'll contact Canon. When you say planning them up are you referring to making four A6 designs on one A4 in photoshop all together then saving as a pdf then printing them that way? If so wouldn't I have to copy all the layers four times? I'm new to all this so i'd need everything explaining bit by bit. I do appreciate your time to reply.

Yeh that's it exactly - it should be pretty straight forward.

Ok, I'll give that ago. Could I save the original design as a JPEG then lay it out 4 times in InDesign? Maybe that would be easier? Also, do you have any tips on getting the best quality print? Thank you.

Well if you have indesign you're better off laying it out there full stop.

But you can place the PDF directly into InDesign and step it up that way.

If you do create it in InDesign - then once done.

You can save the indesign file.

Create a new file to the size of A4
Then use File>Place and place the InDesign file onto the layout.
Duplicate it to "step it up"

Make a PDF using PDFx4a settings

Print that - it should work.

Ok thanks for your help. I'll place the pdf directly into InDesign and print it that way.

No worries - do let us know how you get on.

Also try setting the print scale to 100% rather than "Fill entire paper". I have a Canon SomethingOrOther and by default it tries to stretch the page out a little to add a bleed, which would account for the missing lines.