Printing Tips for 12 x 12 Layouts

It’s been said that limitations encourage creativity and a printer that won’t accept a full 12” x 12” sheet of paper certainly fits that description. With just a little bit of imagination, you can create the printed-on-the-page look without having to purchase a large-format printer.

Here are some tips for computer journaling on 12” x 12” layouts when your printer can’t handle the full 12” x 12” sheet:

Set the paper size to legal. Legal-sized paper gives you 14” in one direction and 8 1/2” in the other. The direction depends on which paper orientation you chose (landscape or portrait). Nearly all printers have the option of printing on this size of paper.

Switch to landscape orientation. You can print almost entirely across the 12” of the page if you arrange your text in landscape orientation and set the margins appropriately. Even if you are only using a few inches of journaling, you can retain the whole 12” of cardstock.

Choose the appropriate margins. Since legal-sized paper is set for 14” wide, you’ll need to reset the margins of your page to print only up to 12” across. Then, within those guidelines you can adjust depending on your needs for the layout you are working on creating.

For example, in the layout “Swim” I wanted the journaling to be set far to the right in one paragraph and far to the left in another paragraph. In my word-processing program I set the page for landscape orientation, then I set my margins for 5 1/4” on the left side and 10 1/4” inches on the right side. This left the left side of the page empty where my photograph would be placed. For the next paragraph, I ended the journaling at 4 ½” to allow room for the second photograph.

Test it first. Print a test page on a sheet of plain legal-sized computer paper. Make sure the text prints exactly where you want it before printing the final draft on your cardstock or patterned paper. If it doesn’t come out right, adjust your margins and print another test page.

Blend it into the full 12” x 12” layout. Since a whole sheet of 12” x 12” paper can’t fit in my printer, I often will cut the paper at the point that does fit through my printer – in my case 8.5” x 12”. That leaves me with a smaller sheet that still stretches the full width of my page and then can easily be blended into my layout.

There are many ways to cover up the edges of the smaller sheet of paper to make it look as though the entire 12” x 12” sheet is still in-tact.

One method is to cover up the cut edges with a large section of paper. In the layout “Red Rock City” I cut the cardstock into two pieces. After I printed on the two pieces I laid them side-by-side and then covered it with a photo collage matted on cardstock. At a glance it looks as though the text was printed directly on a full sheet of cardstock.

Another way to cover up the cut is to place a thin border across the cut. The border can be made from any material such as patterned paper, fiber, ribbon, a row of buttons or even Dymo labeling tape.

Stretch your imagination! There are several ways to overlap and add embellishments to disguise a cut sheet of paper and make it look like a full 12” x 12” sheet.

I primarily create 12” x 12” layouts. While this size has a ton of space for photos and embellishments, it does limit what I can do as far as printing titles and journaling directly to the page. Since a full sheet of 12” x 12” paper won’t run through my printer, I’ve had to get creative when I want that printed-on-the-page look. Now you can too!