knockout dielines
Most production artists do not worry about trapping. Trapping is something best left to pre-press professionals, but there is an exception that I have found can be problematic if it is not addressed.
When setting up a die-cut piece, one of the most common errors that can occur is having the dieline knock out of all the pieces of film.
When this occurs you will get a nice white line around the edge of your piece 
What happens next is up to your relationship with your service provider and how much you had asked or expected of them. Regardless of who is responsible financially, you have an issue of timing now as it needs to be re-run.
So – rather than finger pointing – the best solution is to get into good file set-up habits and stick to them.
3 Steps to Dieline Bliss
Follow these 3 quick steps every time when creating dielines in any software package:
1. Create a spot colour and name that colour “DIELINE – does not print”
(don’t forget to include this colour in your slugs to flag your suppliers of its existence)
2. Stroke your dieline with a 0.5 pt stroke of that “DIELINE – does not print” colour, fill of none.
3. Set the dieline to overprint.
How do I set Overprint?
You can find trapping and overprint controls in all your graphics software titles:
Illustrator: Under the menu WINDOW / ATTRIBUTES set “Overprint Stroke”.
InDesign: Under the menu WINDOW / ATTRIBUTES set “Overprint Stroke”.
XPress: Under the menu WINDOW / TRAP INFORMATION set Line to “Overprint”
david
