Carve plan

Carve plan is the bridge between the iPad and the block. It makes something you can print, tape down and cut against.

Making a plan

Tap New plan. Pick a source:

• From the design. The flattened drawing, all visible layers.
• From a separation. The layer masks from Separate. Choose one layer, or all of them.

Name it and tap Create plan. A project can hold as many plans as you like: one per layer of a reduction, or one for the key block and one for the colour. The Plans button in the toolbar switches between them, archives the ones you are done with, and brings them back.

The transfer

Transfer sets how the guide gets from paper onto lino, and it decides whether the guide is mirrored.

Method	What it is	Mirrored
Carbon paper	High-contrast lines, traced through	Yes
Acetone / wintergreen	Laser print, dabbed and burnished	Yes
Iron-on	Laser print, heat-set	Yes
Direct trace	Tracing paper, straight through	No

Each method carries its reminder, and the reminders are the parts people get wrong. Acetone and iron-on need laser toner, not inkjet. Iron-on wants high heat, no steam, sixty to ninety seconds, peeled while warm. Acetone wants a ventilated room.

The Mirror the guide switch is set by the method but you can override it. The header says which way the sheet will come out: "Prints reversed — reads correctly once pulled", or "Prints as drawn — the print will come out reversed."

High contrast is a threshold slider. Push it until the lines you actually intend to cut survive and the grey mush does not. Carbon paper and toner transfer both want black and white, not tone.

Registration marks are drawn in the margin around the block, outside the image, so they survive the transfer and line up on every layer.

Depth regions

Tap Mark depth, then drag a rectangle on the guide. Each region gets a depth:

Depth	What it means at the bench
Deep cut	Clear it away, down and out
Surface cut	Shallow texture, the shoulder must not print
Leave	Standing surface. Do not touch it.

Marking the leave regions is worth as much as marking the cuts. A region marked Leave gets the note "Standing surface — mask it off or pencil round it before you start clearing", which is a sentence anyone who has cut through their own key line will recognise.

Gouge picks

Mark a depth region and the Gouges popover fills in with suggestions, drawn from your own tool inventory in Studio.

Region	The pick	Why
Deep cut	The widest U in your kit	Clears the field fast, leaves a rounded floor that will not catch ink
Surface cut	A medium U or V	Wide enough that the shoulder does not print
Leave	No gouge	Standing surface
Outlines	The smallest V	Cut just outside every line first, so a slip in the clearing pass cannot cross it
Clearing	The largest U	Clear the open field last, cutting away from the standing edges

If you have no gouges logged, you get generic sizes and a note saying so. Add your gouges in Studio ▸ Tools and the plan starts naming the ones you actually own.

Carve time

The estimate is rough and honest about it: carved area times the material factor, plus ten minutes of setup. Battleship lino and mounted lino count 2.5 min/cm², softcut and easy-cut 1.5, wood 5.0, rubber 1.2. It is good enough to plan a session around, and not good enough to promise anyone a delivery date.

Registration jigs

Actions ▸ Registration jigs prints a jig at true size. Four kinds:

Jig	What it is
Ternes-Burton pin jig	Two pins on the top edge, tabs on the paper
Kento notches	Kagi and hikitsuke cut into the block margin
T-bar	Crossbar and stem, taped to the press bed
Corner tabs	Four taped L-tabs, no drilling

Each is two pages: the 1:1 template with a 100 mm check ruler, then the instructions. The template carries the block outline and the paper outline, so you set the block inside its outline and tape it down.

Leave a hair of clearance. The paper should drop in, not wedge in. For damp paper, re-check the fit, because a sheet grows a millimetre or two when wet. And check registration on a scrap sheet before you commit good paper.

Calibrating your printer

This is the least interesting screen in the app and the one that saves the most paper.

Printers lie. A page marked 1:1 comes out at 98% or 101%, and you do not notice until the second colour of a reduction refuses to sit on the first.

1. Actions ▸ Printer ▸ Calibrate printer.
2. Print the test sheet at 100%. Turn off "Scale to fit".
3. Measure the ruler on the page from 0 to 100 with a steel rule.
4. Type the measured length back into Brayer. It accepts 70 to 130 mm.
5. Every 1:1 export from Carve plan is corrected from then on.

The scale is stored per device. Switch printers, run it again. The toolbar shows "Calibrated ×1.012" or "Not calibrated" so you always know which you are looking at, and the badge is stamped on the exports too.

Separate's 1:1 PDF uses the same correction.

Exporting

Output	What it is
Export 1:1	The guide at exact size, as PDF
Export PNG — 300 dpi	For laser printing from a Mac, or a service bureau. AirDrop it straight over.
Save to Files	The PDF, wherever you keep things
Print at 1:1	AirPrint

PDF and PNG come out at exact size. Print at 100%, never "fit to page". If the block is larger than A3 the sheet is scaled to fit and says so on the page in plain type, so you cannot mistake a reduced sheet for a true one.

Working full-bleed

Actions ▸ View ▸ Hide interface gives you the guide with no chrome over it, which is what you want when you are holding the iPad next to the block. Tap the grabber at the top, or press ⌘. , to come back.