Quick Clicks

The Basics

Creating Card Layouts

Specifying Content

Content in CSV Files

Effects

Previewing and Finding Errors

Printing

Exporting for Documentation, Print-on-Demand, and Online Gaming

Text Layout

Item Tags and Hiding Card Items

Styles, Series, and Rotors

Appendices

Printing and Print Options

How to Print Your Deck

You can just print, using the standard File > Print and File > Page Setup menu commands.

You do not have to print all your cards every time. The Filter features let you choose which cards are printed, and which are not. Improper use of filtering can cause some cards to be omitted from printing and exporting. Please be sure you understand filtering to ensure that you print all the cards you want printed.

Printing is the recommended way to create print-and-play decks for prototyping. If you wish to create output for uploading to print-on-demand services or for digital gaming platforms, see About Exporting.

To print your cards, use the standard Page Setup and Print commands.

You can print directly on paper, but we recommend printing to a PDF document instead. This allows you to preview the printed output before spending paper and ink, and allows you to distribute your deck to others simply by sharing the PDF file.

About Page Size and Orientation

You may select any page size and orientation by using the Page Setup and Print commands.

We're sorry, but Apple's software does not give us a reliable way to detect the actual printable area on a page. Multideck assumes that the printable area is inset from the edges of the paper by 1/4" on all sides.

Multideck will print as many cards per page as will fit within the page's printable area. The printed area is centered on the page. If necessary, Multideck will rotate your card images 90° in order to fit more cards per page.

Why rotate 90°? An example: Multideck can fit 9 poker-sized cards onto an 8.5x11 (American Letter Size) page in portrait orientation (a 3x3 grid), but could only fit 8 in landscape (a 4x2 grid) if the cards were not rotated. The auto-rotation feature ensures that you will always get 9 cards per page in this case, and similarly always get the maximum cards per page for any card and page size and orientation.
 

Card Outlines and Cutting Guides

You may choose from a selection of cutting guide styles (or no cutting guides at all, if you prefer).

By default the Black Outlines cutting guide style is used, which prints a sharp-cornered black outline around each card. You can select a different cutting guide style for the current document by using the Print Options dialog; and you can choose different defaults for new documents by using the Preferences dialog.

Open the Print Options dialog by clicking the Print Option button in the toolbar, or by selecting the menu command File > Print Options.


The Print Options dialog

Paper Cutters
If you use a straight-edged paper cutter to cut out your cards, you should probably select Exterior cutting guides. This will print cutting guides as close to the edge of the paper as your printer can manage, and will not print any cutting guides along the edges of the cards. You can combine this option with any of the other cutting guide styles.

Contrasting with the background
The default black lines may not be visible against cards with dark backgrounds. if some or all of your cards are dark, select White outlines or Black and white dashed outlines, or use Exterior cutting guides to avoid the need for cutting guides along your card edges.

Avoiding outlines
Select Corner crosshairs to avoid having any lines along the edges of your cards; instead, small cross-hair guides will be printed at the card corners. This works especially well if you plan to use a corner-rounder on your finished cards.

Select No cutting guides if you wish to have no cutting guides at all, for example if you are printing double-sided and you don't need cutting guides on one side.  

Card Spacing

By default, cards are printed close-packed on each page, so that you can cut them out with a minimal number of cuts. But you can use the Print Options dialog to specify an arbitrary spacing between cards. This is suitable for pre-perforated paper, and for double-sided printing (so that cards can be printed with a bleed area to compensate for registration inaccuracies).

To use card spacing, open the Print Dialog. Select the Enable Card Spacing checkbox, then enter your desired horizontal and vertical spacing between cards. (These values are in inches by default, but you can use millimeters if you select that option in the Deck tab.)

If you do not select Enable Card Spacing your cards will be close-packed; but your spacing values will be remembered so that you can print with card spacing again just by selecting Enable Card Spacing once more.

New Document Defaults

By default, when you add a new template it will use Black outlines. If you usually want a different setting, open the Preferences panel and select your desired setting in the New Document Defaults box. Those settings will automatically be applied to any templates you create.

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