Printing
Business Card Composer allows you to easily print your cards with any printer. As a rule, a paper sheet includes 8-10 items, depending on the selected layout (See Printing Layouts section).
Before printing, open Page Setup dialog (from File > Page Setup menu or Shift-Cmd-P). Make sure you've selected the right paper size and orientation. Also don't forget about Printer calibration.
To print your business cards:
- Choose the File > Print menu command (Cmd-P).
The print dialog will come up. In the dialog you can see a preview of the cards as they will be positioned on the printed sheet.
- Set up the number of cards you want to print.
- Set Start from card — the position on the sheet from which your cards should be printed.
- Select a printer in the Printer list if several printers are installed in your system.
- Set additional print options if needed.
Cut lines and dotted marks are helpful if you are printing on regular paper, rather than on special card paper, and want to cut the cards afterwards.
Print as Raster Image — converts the design to the raster format (including vector images and text) before sending it to the printer. The option is used to avoid printing problems.
Convert Text to Curves — converts text to a vector image before sending to the printer to avoid problems with fonts.
- Select a card side(s) to print.
For single-sided cards the side you have used is already selected.
If you have designed a double-sided card, choose one or both sides to print. See Printing Double-Sided Cards for more information.
- After clicking the Next button, the standard print dialog comes up. You can change printer settings (such as print quality, type of paper, etc.).
- Finally, click Print.
Warning: The Copies parameter in the system print dialog defines the number of printed cards (not sheets!).
Note: Pay attention to the additional print settings, located in the Preferences dialog. For instance, disabling the Print card as raster image option may solve printing problems on some PostScript printers. Enabling the Ignore printer page settings option can eliminate the problem of cutting bottom cards, which may sometimes occur after printer calibration.
If you want to print cards for several people using the same card design, use the Print for Several People option from the File menu.
If you would like to print cards with different designs (saved in different files) on one page, use the Print Multiple Designs option from the File menu.
Printing Double-Sided Cards
You can print both sides or any side of a double-sided card separately, use the Print Side pop-up menu. If you selected printing both sides, the print preview will show each paper side as a separate page. Do not be confused by this!
You can choose one of two options of printing order with Duplex printing order checkbox:
- When Duplex printing order is disabled, the front side of all pages will be shown in the preview and printed at first, then the back side.
According to the number of cards you need, the program will calculate how many paper sheets you should insert into the printer.
When the front side is printed on all sheets (the printer may indicate, that the paper is out), insert the paper into the printer again to print the back side. Make sure the paper is not turned upside-down.
- When Duplex printing order is enabled, the print order will be as follows: Front of page 1, Back of page 1, Front of page 2, Back of page 2 and so on.
If you are printing on a regular printer (without duplex printing feature), you will have to feed paper sheet manually one by one. When its front side is printed, insert it into the printer again to print the opposite side. Then insert the next sheet and repeat the operation.