Imposition mode
Step and Repeat imposition
Tiles a single page across the whole sheet. The mode for labels, business cards, tags and anything produced many-up from one design.
Step and Repeat does nothing to page order, because there is no order to do anything to. One artwork is placed into every position on the sheet. The step is the distance from one position to the next — the page footprint plus the gap — and the repeat is however many of those fit in the rows and columns you set.
This is the mode for anything produced many-up from a single design: business cards, labels, swing tags, tickets that are not numbered, coasters, loyalty cards. The only questions it asks are how many fit, and how much space to leave between them for the knife.
How it works
Set rows and columns, or turn on Automatic placement and let the sheet and artwork sizes decide. Gap X and Gap Y are the spaces between neighbouring positions, defaulting to 1 mm and 2 mm. With Centre in sheet on, the whole block is centred and the remaining sheet becomes an even margin — which is where the crop marks live.
The number that governs the layout is not the artwork size, it is the artwork size plus the bleed. FastImpose applies a single bleed allowance around the placed page, so a card with 3 mm of bleed occupies 3 mm more on every side than its trim size suggests. Two neighbouring cards that share a cut therefore need a gutter of at least twice the bleed, or their bleeds overlap and each one prints over its neighbour. The full relationship is on bleed and gutters.
A worked example: 85 × 55 mm cards on A3
A standard business card is 85 × 55 mm. A3 is 297 × 420 mm. How many up you get depends entirely on whether the artwork bleeds.
With 3 mm bleed and a shared cut
A shared cut between two bleeding cards needs 6 mm of gutter — 3 mm for each side. Set Gap X and Gap Y to 6.
- Columns: 85 × 3 + 6 × 2 = 267 mm. A fourth column would need 358 mm. Three columns.
- Rows: 55 × 6 + 6 × 5 = 360 mm. A seventh row would need 421 mm, one millimetre over. Six rows.
- 3 × 6 = 18 cards per sheet, in a 267 × 360 mm block, leaving 15 mm of margin left and right and 30 mm top and bottom.
- A run of 500 cards is 28 sheets, which yields 504.
With no bleed and a butt cut
If the artwork has a white margin and nothing runs to the edge, set bleed to 0 and both gaps to 0, and adjacent cards share a single knife position.
- Columns: 297 ÷ 85 = 3.49. Three columns, 255 mm.
- Rows: 420 ÷ 55 = 7.63. Seven rows, 385 mm.
- 21 cards per sheet. The same 500-card run becomes 24 sheets.
Three sheets of stock is the price of a bleed. That is not an argument against bleeding — a card that has to bleed has to bleed — but it is worth knowing which decision is costing you the sheets before you quote the job.
When to use it, and when not to
- One artwork, many copies, one sheet: this mode.
- Several different artworks on one sheet: put them in one source PDF in the order you want and use N-Up, which places consecutive pages across the grid.
- One artwork per piece but each piece uniquely numbered: neither mode does that on its own. FastImpose numbers sheets, not positions — see slug line and sheet numbering.
My source PDF has several pages. Which one gets repeated?
Set a page range that selects the single page you want — 3, for example — and that page is what fills the sheet. A range is the cleanest way to run one artwork out of a multi-page file without splitting it first.
Why did I get 18-up when the calculator on the wall says 21?
Because the wall calculator is working from trim size and you are working from trim plus bleed plus gutter. 21-up is the butt-cut figure. As soon as the artwork bleeds you owe the guillotine 6 mm between every pair of pieces, and that costs you a column or a row.
Can I set different gaps horizontally and vertically?
Yes, and they are separate settings with different defaults — 1 mm across and 2 mm down. If your cards bleed on all four edges, set both to twice the bleed. Uneven gaps are useful when the cutting sequence takes the sheet down in strips first.
Does the scale apply to the sheet or the artwork?
To the placed artwork. The sheet is whatever paper format you chose and never moves. Scaling is proportional in both axes, so a card cannot be stretched to fit — see page ranges, rotation and scale.
What it is for
- Business cards, many-up on one sheet
- Label and sticker sheets
- Swing tags and tickets
- Any single artwork produced in quantity
Settings
| Setting | Range | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rows | 1 and up | 1 | Rejected at zero. |
| Columns | 1 and up | 1 | Rejected at zero. |
| Gap X | 0 mm and up | 1 mm | Horizontal space between placed pages. Negative values are rejected. |
| Gap Y | 0 mm and up | 2 mm | Vertical space between placed pages. |
| Automatic placement | On, Off | Off | Derives rows and columns from the sheet and page size instead of taking them from you. |
| Paper format | A4, A3, A5, Letter, Legal, Tabloid, Custom | A4 | Custom takes an explicit width and height. Sheet sizes above Tabloid — SRA3 among them — are set this way. |
| Scale | Greater than 0% | 100% | Applied to the placed page, not the sheet. Proportions are never distorted. |
| Page rotation | 0, 90, 180, 270 | 0 | Rotates the source page before placement. |
| Page range | e.g. 1-8, 12, 15-20 | All pages | Impose a subset without splitting the source file first. |
| File bleed | 0 mm and up | 0 mm | A single allowance applied around the placed page. Keep it at or below half the gap, or adjacent pages overlap. |
| Centre in sheet | On, Off | On | Centres the imposed block on the sheet rather than pinning it to the margin. |
| Duplex | On, Off | On | Imposes fronts and backs as a two-sided job. |
| Flip back 180° | On, Off | On | Rotates the back of each sheet. Requires Duplex — the job is rejected if set without it. |