The collate function is easy to use on almost all printers. Since you must perform bleed trimming after printing, these particular sheets have to be re-installed by hand into the correct place.

No bleed and bleed mix - Books can come with a few photo pages that need to print to the edge (i.e., bleed), while the rest are filled with plain text and a blank margin (i.e., no bleed).

If every sheet of your file is a tad smaller or larger than the one before, you’ll need to trim and collate by hand.

Different sizes - Sometimes, the document includes pages of varying sizes.

While there are many instances where this might be the case, the most common are as follows: There are times when collating by hand is essential. But not every job lends itself to this type of printing. Provided the pages within your document have similar characteristics, collating them with automated equipment should be easy. Watch your collated documents come to life!.Usually, it’s depicted by a symbol containing three stacked pieces of paper. Find the checkbox by the “Collate” option.Select “Print” to bring up the dialogue box or preview.Navigate to the document you wish to print.No matter your printer, you should be able to setup collation by following the six steps below: It won’t fail - While you might want to check the print quality, as long as the “Collate” box is checked, the print job won’t fail.You don’t need to worry about missing pages or out-of-order booklets by letting your printer do the work. It ensures accuracy and consistency - Repetitive, mindless tasks like sorting pages leave room for human error as the brain wanders and focus dwindles.You just need them to take the printouts from the tray. You won’t need to pay somebody to stand and arrange the pages. It’s fantastic for businesses - If you run a business that prints large PDFs, prospectus, leaflets, or books, the collate feature reduces the cost of labor.By collating, the printouts are arranged for you.

If you’re dealing with loads of printouts, arranging them by hand doesn’t bear thinking about. It saves time - Perhaps the most prominent and vital benefit is that it saves time.The Advantages of Collated PrintoutsĪs you can probably imagine by now, there are a couple of advantages to collated printouts, including but not limited to: Afterward, you’d need to sort them by hand, which can be incredibly time-consuming.Įssentially, it ensures consistency by completely printing one copy of the document before beginning the second.ĭepending on your printer setup, collating may be enabled by default. If you’re printing documents to share with 15 people, non-collated printing gives you a pile of pages, ones, then two’s, etc. Generally speaking, if you’re printing multiple copies of a document, collating makes it easier to keep every copy separate. Whether or not you should collate pages when printing depends on your project. Following the example above, the printer would eject pages one, two, then three 20 times. So, each set contains a single copy of every original in the current sequence. For instance, a print run of 20 copies of three originals would print page one in a set of 20, then all 20 copies of page two, and then all 20 of page three.Ĭonversely, collated printing is the term used to refer to multiple originals printed in numerical order. In other words, the printed documents aren’t sequenced. Non-collated (sometimes called un-collated) printing is when originals are printed and sorted separately.

The Difference Between Collated and Non-Collated Printing

Should You Collate Pages When Printing?.

The Difference Between Collated and Non-Collated Printing.

Collate or not