Use this article when your shop runs flatbed UV, latex, or eco-solvent printers on rigid sheets (SwissQprint, Durst Rho, HP Latex flatbed, Mimaki JFX, Canon Sheetfed, or similar) and you need Estimator to price ink area, labour, and run time on every rigid-board quote. After this you will have a large-format sheet-fed press that prices correctly on board, foam, acrylic, and rigid-substrate quotes, with the press appearing in route information and the ink, make-ready, and run lines appearing on the price breakdown.
Steps
1. Configure the large-format sheet-fed press
Open Estimate Setup → Print Machines, then add or open the press you want to configure and set Machine Type to Large Format Sheet-Fed. Fill in the fields below.
Identification
Name — recommended format is brand and model, so the press is easy to recognise on quotes (e.g., "Canon Wide", "Canon Sheetfed", or "SwissQprint Nyala 3").
Manufacturer — free-text label captured alongside the name. Display only.
Machine Type — select Large Format Sheet-Fed. Changing the type later rewrites the editor and discards area-cost and coverage-tier fields.
Status — set to Active when the press should be a candidate for routing.
Tags — link the press to rigid substrates and finishing equipment (CNC routers, hemming, grommet presses). Without a matching tag, Estimator excludes the press with the reason "no machine matches tags".
Physical capabilities
Minimum sheet size (width × height) — smallest piece the bed can register and image, in millimetres or inches.
Maximum sheet size (width × height) — the bed dimensions; the largest piece the press can image. For example, 2050 × 2000 mm or 80 × 79 in on a wide flatbed.
Maximum stock caliper — maximum board or rigid-substrate thickness, in millimetres or inches. For example, up to 50 mm or 2 in on a flatbed.
Maximum Width — maximum imageable width when the head's print bar is shorter than the bed. Set only if the press has this constraint.
Non-printable margins (width / height) — edge area outside the head's travel. For example, 12 × 10 mm or 0.5 × 0.4 in.
Operational speeds and labour
Make-ready minutes — fixed overhead before the run starts (load board, set vacuum, RIP files, run colour check). For example, 4–5 minutes on a fast UV flatbed.
Output per hour — maximum sustained production speed at standard quality. For square-metre lines, in square metres per hour (e.g., 75 m²/hour on a Canon Sheetfed); for piece-based lines, in sides per hour.
Machine rate per hour — hourly machine running cost. For example, €75/hour or $85/hour for a mid-range UV flatbed.
Labour rate per hour — operator cost per hour. For example, €19/hour or $22/hour. On large-format, the operator typically loads and unloads each sheet, so labour cost scales with run time.
Over copies — extra pieces produced beyond ordered quantity to cover finishing loss (cut, mount, laminate).
Running spoils % — additional spoils as a percentage of necessary quantity. For example, 0.5–1%.
Large-format cost fields
CMY cost per area — per-square-metre cost of CMYK ink at the Standard coverage tier, in tenant currency. For example, €0.0011/m² or $0.0013/m² for a UV-curable line. This is typically the primary cost driver on flatbed.
Black cost per area — per-area black-ink cost component.
White-ink cost per area — per-area white-ink cost component. Used on coloured or transparent rigid stocks where white is the primer layer.
CMY click rate / Black click rate / White-ink click rate — optional per-piece click costs layered on top of (or instead of) the area cost, depending on contract structure. Leave at zero on purely area-based contracts.
Ink coverage tiers — multipliers on the ink rate by coverage classification (e.g., Very Light 0.70, Standard 1.0, Heavy 1.10). Scale every ink line.
Ink Type — free-text label (e.g., UV-curable, latex, eco-solvent). Informs operator about ink family.
White-ink allowed — toggle controlling whether the white-ink line can appear on quotes from this press.
Impose files price — per-file imposition or nesting charge added to prepress.
Preflight check price per page — per-page preflight cost added to prepress.
Save the change. The Pending Changes count increments by one in the sidebar.
2. Connect the press to substrates and categories
Open the rigid substrates that should run on this press under Substrates and confirm each one carries at least one tag matching the press's tags.
Open the product categories that should route here (signs, banners on board, packaging mock-ups, mounted displays) and confirm a large-format path is configured.
Save the change. Pending Changes increments again.
3. Apply the changes
Open the Pending Changes panel in the sidebar and review the staged edits. Select Apply Changes to publish them to live setup.
The Pending Changes count returns to zero. Recalculate a test quote that uses a rigid substrate; the press appears in the route information and the ink, make-ready, and run lines appear on the price breakdown, with the coverage tier label visible.
Things to know
Large-format sheet-fed pricing is dominated by ink area cost rather than per-impression clicks. The CMY cost per area field is the primary cost driver — set it carefully against measured ink consumption per square metre at the Standard tier.
Maximum stock caliper on a flatbed often refers to substrate thickness in millimetres (board, acrylic, foam), not microns. Confirm the unit in the editor before setting; a number meant for a sheet-fed offset record will be wildly out of range here.
Ink coverage tiers scale every ink line on every quote. The configured tier label is shown on the quote breakdown so operators can confirm which tier matched.
Plate-cost and click-rate fields on a flatbed record have no effect unless your contract is explicitly hybrid; leave them at zero on purely area-based contracts.