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Many artists who work with Adobe Illustrator rarely print from within the program itself. They create illustrations and technical artwork for incorporation into documents in other applications and print from those files instead. If you need to check the size of a drawing against a sheet size or print a proof from Illustrator to a device that can't handle the full size of your art, use the program's output flexibility to set up the process.
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Your inkjet, laser, solid-ink or dye-sublimation printer features two separate output capabilities that define what it can produce. First, each device handles specific minimum and maximum page sizes. The minimum may represent an envelope, a small configuration that fits through a manual bypass or in an adjustable tray or a nonstandard set of dimensions you can't buy off the shelf by the ream. Along with paper-handling characteristics, the printer's specs include maximum imageable areas that represent how much of each sheet size the device can cover. Neither desktop output devices nor commercial presses can print all the way to the edge of a piece of paper. Instead, you feed in a larger sheet, print past the finished size you need and trim off the excess. Some photo printers automatically clip off unprinted margins for you. To set up an Adobe Illustrator document that reflects your device's imageable dimensions within the boundaries of an output sheet, select a page size the device can handle and adjust the guides that Illustrator shows you.
