Aligning front and back templates in print

[PrepressNewb]

Hi there. I am new to doing prepress with a company that is new to printing in general. I have a background in multimedia design, but mostly web and video based design, so designing for print is somewhat foreign to me. I am reading and watching tutorials on things I need to do but I have run into a roadblock. I am trying to print 2 PDF files. One is the front of a credit card, the other would be the back. When printed, the pages will be lined up back to back and punched out. The issue I am having is that even though the lines and crop marks that need to line up are centered in the page on InDesign, I am finding that when I print, the results are becoming skewed. We are printing on an HP Digital Indigo 5600. I am attaching the 2 PDF files I am working with. The 2 PDFs are from the same InDesign file, only with different layers activated for the registration marks. I appreciate any productive advice. Thank you.

 

[Spot24wsn]

The problem you are having is a hardware issue. Most digital printers have a skew allotment, and shift as well. I've found that after proofing off a copy, I could image shift and re-send with most of my jobs that are alignment sensitive. You could check that the paper tray isn't allowing the paper to feed in skewed, but that's the nature of the digital beast.

 

[wonderings]

The problem you are having is a hardware issue. Most digital printers have a skew allotment, and shift as well. I've found that after proofing off a copy, I could image shift and re-send with most of my jobs that are alignment sensitive. You could check that the paper tray isn't allowing the paper to feed in skewed, but that's the nature of the digital beast.

+1

Digital usually needs adjustment to line up the front and back. I am not familiar with the Indigo, but on smaller presses this is basically the case for most stocks if they have not be calibrated recently for alignment. What runs the Indigo? Does it use Command Workstation or something from HP that handles and prints the files?

In Command Workstation you have properties and one of them is for alignment in which you can adjust and move the job to get closer registration.
Screen Shot 2019-03-07 at 1.27.02 PM by B P, on Flickr

 

[PrepressNewb]

HP uses SmartStream Designer on the press. I will talk to the Press Operator to see what options there are for repositioning it on the press. I guess I just wanted to make sure there was not some prepess element I was missing to cause the alignment issue.

 

[wonderings]

HP uses SmartStream Designer on the press. I will talk to the Press Operator to see what options there are for repositioning it on the press. I guess I just wanted to make sure there was not some prepess element I was missing to cause the alignment issue.

If you are setting up multi page, or 2 sided jobs in the same indesign file unless you go and make custom pages sizes in the document they will all be the same and when you export as a PDF they will all be the same. The registration comes from the press itself after that.