What This Article Covers

• Where print settings live, and why each printer has its own

• Margins — what they do on paper, and printing edge to edge

• Strips per sheet, and cutting strips apart

• Overcoat finish and print quality

• Image sharpening

• Saving your settings as defaults for new printers

• Checking a change with Test Print

• Troubleshooting common print quality issues

Open your event, tap Configure Printers, then tap the printer you want to adjust. Everything below is on that screen, under Settings.

Each printer keeps its own copy of them. That's what lets one printer run matte strips while another runs glossy 4×6 — but it also means changing sharpening on one printer changes it for that printer only, not any of the others.

Not every printer allows you to set every setting type. A print server lays prints out on its own host machine, so it exposes only Image Sharpening (plus Cache DNS and Host Name Resolution on wireless servers). AirPrint has no cutter and no finish or quality control. On Direct USB the actual list shown depends on the model, its firmware and the media loaded, so two DNP entries won't always look the same — and an entry whose printer isn't currently connected shows a general list rather than that unit's exact one. Managing Multiple Printers has the full comparison.

Margins are a calibration control. They exist to line the printed image up with the paper's physical edges, and they are measured from those edges — one field each for Top, Left, Bottom and Right, with the equivalent in inches and millimetres under each field and a stepper beside it for nudging a value one unit at a time.

On Direct USB the unit is printer dots, which is the smallest step the printer can actually place — 300 dots to the inch on a DNP. On AirPrint the unit is inches. Both editors show you what the number is worth in real units as you type, so you never have to convert anything yourself.

A positive margin prints as a white border of exactly that size, measured in from the paper's edge, and the image is fitted into what's left. A margin of 0 — the default — puts the image right up to the edge.

Changing a margin never cuts content off at the edge of the image — it only changes the area the image is fitted into.

So if faces or text are being clipped at the edge of your prints, margins are the wrong dial. That's the design's shape not matching the paper's shape, and it's fixed by the template or the print size, not here.

Margins can be set below zero. A negative margin pushes the image out past the paper's edge, so the printer trims through the image rather than near it — the same idea as bleed in print design.

On Direct USB you rarely need it. Reach for a negative margin only if you see a pale sliver on one edge — a few dots is usually enough, and you can go down to −300 dots (one inch).

On AirPrint, negative margins are limited by the printer itself: the AirPrint unit clips at its own printable area, so small bleed values do something and large ones simply stop having an effect.

On a 2-up strip sheet that the printer cuts apart, the cut sits at a fixed position down the middle of the sheet.

The consequence is worth knowing before you see it: a Top or Bottom margin on a cut strip sheet applies to one of the two strips — the one that owns that edge of the sheet — not to both. If you want an even border on both strips, use the Left and Right margins, which run the full length of both.

Strips Per Sheet sets how many strips share one sheet of media — 1 to 4, defaulting to 2. It only appears on printers that can receive strip jobs, so a printer set to Standard prints only under Prints won't show it.

It's really a width control. The strips divide the sheet between them, so the count and the media together decide what a guest walks away with:

Remember that print limits count copies, not sheets. Two strips per sheet means two copies come off one sheet — see How Event Print Limits Work.

Enable this when the printer should separate a strip sheet into finished strips, disable when you'd rather trim by hand, the media is perforated, or your media doesn't suit the cutter. It's enabled by default.

This option is only there when the printer can actually cut what you've asked for, which means all three of these at once:

If the row isn't showing, one of those three is the reason — check Strips Per Sheet and Print Size first, since those are the two you control.

Dye-sub printers seal every print under a protective overcoat, and that overcoat is what you feel when you pick the print up. Every printer that offers the row has:

Two more appear on capable models:

The DS820A offers all four. On a DS620A, Luster and Fine Matte depend on the unit's firmware, and they only appear while the printer is connected — an offline printer shows Glossy and Matte until Snappic can see the firmware for itself. A Citizen CW-01 has no finish control at all.

Where a model has more than one quality mode, this row lets you trade speed for detail. The options say which is which:

A DS620A offers the first two, a DS820A all three, and other models print at a single quality so the row doesn't appear.

Think of it as an event-shape decision rather than a quality decision. At a busy event the queue length is what guests notice; at a small premium event where people study the print in their hands, the slower mode earns its time.

Dye-sub printing softens fine detail slightly compared with what you see on screen, so Snappic adds a little edge definition before printing. The slider runs from 0% to 100% and starts at 20% on every new printer.

20–40% suits most setups. Push higher if prints look genuinely soft, but stop as soon as you see hard, outlined edges or pale halos along high-contrast lines — over-sharpening looks worse than none at all, and it's obvious on a print in a way it isn't on a screen.

Judge it from a Test Print every time. And if prints are soft rather than merely lacking bite, sharpening won't rescue them — soft capture lighting and camera focus are the usual causes, and they need fixing at the source.

Once a printer is set up the way you want, tap Save as Default Settings at the bottom of its screen. Snappic confirms with Defaults Saved, and the footer tells you exactly what it did — "New Direct USB printers you add will start with this printer's current settings."

Worth doing as soon as you've dialled in your first printer of each type. It saves repeating the same margin and sharpening work on every printer you add afterwards.

Only the settings you actually changed are carried across. Anything you left alone keeps following the sensible default for whatever printer you add next, which is what you want — a value that suited one model shouldn't be forced onto another.

Every printer's settings screen has a Test Print row. Where the printer can receive both kinds of job you get two buttons, Standard and Strips; where it can only receive one, you get a single button.

The test page goes through the same rendering your guests' prints do — your margins, size, layout, quality, finish and sharpening are all exercised for real. A Strips test composes and cuts exactly as your real strips will, so it's a rehearsal rather than a picture of one.

The card is built for reading answers off:

Snappic confirms with Test Print Sent, or tells you why not with Test Print Failed. Printers that can't report their own paper size ask Paper Size first so the card comes out the right shape.

Run one after any settings change, and again whenever you change media.

Why is content cut off at the edges of my prints?

Cause: The design's shape doesn't match the paper's shape, so it's fitted to fill the sheet and the overhang is lost. Margins don't cause this and can't fix it — they change the area the image is fitted into, not what's in it.

Fix: Check the print size against the media loaded, and check the template was designed for the shape you're printing. See Print Sizes and 2-up 4x6.

Why is there a white border around my prints?

Cause: A margin is set above zero on that edge.

Fix: Set the offending edge back to 0 and run a Test Print. If a pale sliver survives on a Direct USB printer, take that edge slightly negative — a few dots at a time.

Why did a margin land on a different edge than I expected?

Cause: Margins are measured from the paper's edges. When a design rotates to fit the paper, the design's top isn't the paper's top.

Fix: Set margins by looking at the printed sheet rather than the design. A Test Print shows you which physical edge each field controls.

Why does a margin only affect one of my two strips?

Cause: On a cut strip sheet, the cut sits at a fixed position, so a Top or Bottom margin belongs to whichever strip owns that edge of the sheet.

Fix: Use the Left and Right margins for a border that appears on both strips.

Why did my print job fail with a message about margins?

Cause: The margins leave no printable area — usually a value typed into the wrong field, or a margin on a cut strip sheet that reaches past the cut.

Fix: Reduce the margins, then retry the job from the print queue.

Why can't I find the option to Cut Strips Apart?

Cause: The row only appears when the printer can cut what you've asked for: Strips Per Sheet at 2, Print Size at 4×6, and a model whose cutter supports the 2-inch cut.

Fix: Check Strips Per Sheet and Print Size first. If both are right and the row still isn't there, that model can't cut strips — trim by hand.

Why can't I see Luster or Fine Matte?

Cause: Either the model doesn't offer them, the unit's firmware is older than they need, or Snappic can't currently see the printer to know.

Fix: Connect the printer and reopen its settings. If they still aren't listed, use Glossy or Matte.

Why does changing a setting on one printer not affect the others?

Cause: Settings are per printer. There are no app-wide print settings.

Fix: Change it on each printer that needs it, then use Save as Default Settings so printers you add later inherit it.

Why do prints look different depending on which printer they came from?

Cause: Each printer carries its own margins, finish, quality and sharpening. If those differ, the output differs.

Fix: Match the settings across the printers and Test Print each one. This matters most where two printers share the same work, since a guest gets whichever was free.

Why do my prints look soft compared to the screen?

Cause: Dye-sub printing softens fine detail slightly, and sharpening may be set low for the content you're printing.

Fix: Raise Image Sharpening in small steps, judging each from a Test Print, and stop before halos appear on high-contrast edges. If the source images are genuinely soft, check your lighting and camera focus — sharpening can't recover them.

Visit the Snappic Help Center or chat directly from your dashboard for live support.