A question that comes up a lot is this: “Now that i have made a digital scrapbook, how do I print it and put it in a binder?”
That is a really good question! Of course there is no ONE correct answer – which is what I love about creativity! Many people buy their scrapbook album or binder before they design their pages. It gets kind of tricky if you are using a 12 x 12 album because not many home ink jet printers will print paper that large. If you have a printer that prints 11 x 17 (or tabloid size) you can print on that size paper and crop down the pages to 11 x 11 or 11 x 12 to insert into a 12 x 12 binder. (In europe, the closest paper size is A3 which is 11.69 x 16.54 inches.)
If you don’t have a printer with the larger sized paper capapbilities, you can go to a print shop or Kinkos and get your pages printed on 11 x 17 paper. (You’ll still have to crop the pages down because there will be extra white areas on the page.)
If you are lucky enough to have a photo printer that prints 13″ x 19″ photo enlargements, you would get some good results for digital layouts. (The photo printers that print that size are: Epson Stylus Photo 1400 or Epson Stylus Photo R1900, HP Photo Smart, Canon PIXMA Pro9000 and PIXMA Pro9500 (and probably some others).
Many scrapbookers design their layouts for 8.5 x 11 pages (or “letter” size in the U.S.) which are comparable to A4 paper in europe (which measures 8.27 x 11.69 inches). I can’t even imagine what european scrapbookers do to get pages to fit 8.5 x 11 albums! I’ve read that many people print to this size love the borderless printers which allow your print area to go to the edge of the paper (so you don’t have to trim off excess paper after printing).
Of course, if you are making layouts for a smaller album, say at 8 x 8 inches, any printer will be able to output pages that allow for that size, but cropping the final pages will be necessary. Tip: if you DO have 11 x 17 or 13 x 19 printing capabilities, you can “gang up” two 8 x 8 pages and print them on one page, then cut them apart.
So there are some ideas for printing your digital scrapbooks. Maybe you got a new printer and can test it out soon!
Oh yeah, it’s 2009, can you believe it! Happy New Year scrappers!!
hi thx a lot for this article
i have the Epson R1900
and my layout is ready to print but i don’t know which paper i should use for this to print double sided
i try a simiglossy double side paper but the black color always smudge from the paper even if i let it to dry – i select most of the paper kind in the printer but same problem