The Bed Editor arranges plates on the material. Where the Plate Editor defines one item, the bed decides how many fit on a sheet and how they are spaced.
The bed
A bed represents one sheet of material. Its dimensions come from the store defaults set in Store Settings, and can be changed for an individual job.
Where a run does not fit on one sheet, it continues onto further beds automatically. Bed navigation moves between them.
Spacing
Settings are grouped in the right panel under Fill Direction, Material Dimensions, Material Margins, Plate Spacing, and Bed Outline. Where a plate carries no variables, a Manual Plate Count group appears above them, setting how many plates the run produces.
Setting | Controls |
Plate spacing | Space between plates, horizontal and vertical |
Material margins | Plate Spacing Space between plates, horizontal and verticalMaterial Margins Empty space around the edges of the sheetBed Outline An optional visible boundary marking the cutting areaFill Direction Whether plates fill the bed left to right or top to bottom |
Bed outline | An optional visible boundary marking the cutting area |
Margins matter where the engraver cannot reach the full sheet, or where clamps occupy an edge of the material.
Layout statistics
A statistics panel reports what the current arrangement produces: total plates, total beds, the grid layout, plates per bed, and character counts, total and per plate, both excluding spaces.
Checking plates per bed against the material on hand is the quickest way to catch a layout that will waste a sheet.
Editing text across the bed
Find and replace updates recurring text across every plate at once, searching either the data table or static plate text. See Find and replace.
Filtering
Plates can be filtered so only a subset is shown, which is the basis for exporting a partial run when reprinting a handful of items.
Exporting
Export happens from here rather than the Plate Editor, because the bed determines the arrangement. See Exporting a job.