Cutting & Assembling Booklet

The cut marks on the printout are guidelines that show between which mini-pages to cut. Their position is accurate to about 1/16", which is not high precision for very small mini-pages. Use your eye or measure, in order to cut precisely halfway between mini-pages.

The marks themselves tell you the order of the cuts. The solid line indicates the first cut, the line composed of two dashes indicates the second, the line composed of three dashes indicates the third, and so on.

The instructions below, or those printed with the printout, include the important information about how to re-stack the cut sheets after each cut. They give the general rules for cutting and assembling any book of any layout.

1. If the mini-pages do not fill the sheet (that is, if you specified absolute mini-page dimensions), the first step is to cut away the extra paper. If there is no extra to cut away, skip to step 4.
2. Cut at the "one-dash" cut mark, which indicates a vertical cut to eliminate extra paper on the right. Discard the extraneous strips.
3. Cut at the "two dash" cut mark, which indicates a horizontal cut to eliminate extra paper at the bottom. Discard the extraneous strips.
4. Make the leftmost vertical cut. (Look for the next cut mark. Depending on whether you did steps 1.a. and/or 1.b., this may be composed of one, two or three dashes.)
5. Now your printout is split into two stacks. Place the one with page 1 on top of the other, aligning the top left corners.
6. Make the leftmost remaining vertical cut, if any.
7. Again, place the page 1 stack on top of the other, with top left corners together.
8. Continue in the same way until all vertical cuts have been made.
9. Make the top horizontal cut.
10. Place the page 1 stack on top of the other, with top left corners together.
11. Make the topmost remaining horizontal cut if any.
12. Place the page 1 stack on top of the other, with the top left corners together.
13. Continue in the same way until all horizontal cuts have been made.
14. Be sure to fold and/or bind on the edge indicated by your choice of layout, namely binding on the left for a Standard book, or on top for a Flip book. For a folded booklet layout: Remove blank mini-sheets, if any, from the middle. Fold in half and staple. For a cut book layout: Remove blank mini-pages, if any from the end. Then bind.

Cutting options:

Paper Trimmer - See our paper trimmers at http://www.bluesquirrel.com/so/trimmer/

Binding options:

Staple (also called a saddle stitch) - See our specialized staplers at http://www.bluesquirrel.com/clickbook/staplers.asp