Nesting

Fit more on every sheet or roll. Nesting packs your artwork tightly onto the media: real shapes such as stickers, lettering and CNC parts by their true outline, or rectangles for prints and panels. It also works out how much media a job needs, for quoting.

See it in the shop · Version 1.0.2 · Needs PowerScripts 3.8.42 or later

Open the PowerScripts panel (Window > Extensions > PowerScripts) and choose Nesting from the Tools scripts. The script has three tabs: Quick Nesting, Advanced Nesting and Options.

• Shape Nest: fits shapes together by their real outline, turning them if you allow it, and can even put small shapes inside bigger ones. For stickers, lettering, vinyl, CNC and laser parts.
  • Stickers and graphics: each die line (cut path) is nested with the artwork under it, so the artwork moves with its cut line.
  • CNC and laser cut: every shape is nested by its own outline, with no die lines.
• Best Fit: packs rectangles (the boxes round your artwork) as tightly as possible. For prints, signs and panels.
• Easy Cut: rectangles laid out so they can be cut with straight cuts from edge to edge, for example with a guillotine or a ruler and knife.

1. Select the artwork on the artboard.
2. On Quick Nesting, choose the Method, set the gap Between shapes, and tick Allow Rotations if pieces can turn.
3. Press Nest selected items on Artboard.

The pieces are moved into place on the artboard, and the panel says how many were nested and how much of the sheet is used. On a big job a Stop button shows.

• Method: Shape Nest - stickers and graphics, Shape Nest - CNC and laser cut, Best Fit or Easy Cut.
• Between shapes: the gap between pieces.
• Resize Artboard (Best Fit and Easy Cut): Do Not Resize, Expand Width or Expand Height so everything fits.
• Allow Rotations: let pieces turn for a better fit.
• Nest selected items on Artboard: does it.

For full control, several sheets or a roll, quantities, and choosing between solutions. It works in three steps: 1 - Use Selected, 2 - Calculate Nesting, 3 - Apply.

• Shape Nest, Best Fit or Easy Cut (see above).

• Fit to: a Single Sheet, Multiple Sheets, the Artboards, a Vertical Roll or a Horizontal Roll. Use All Artboards and Use Active Artboard take the size from your document.
• Sheet Width, Sheet Height: the media size.
• Grain: None, Long or Short, for board, card and wood where pieces must follow the grain.
• For Shape Nest:
  • Nest: Quantities from the list, or Fill: as many of the first piece as will fit.
  • Into: the Artboard, Selected shapes (for example an offcut drawn as a shape: press Use selection as shapes), or a Fixed size.
  • Fill from: the corner and edge to start from, for example Top edge, left first (like printing down a roll, or a laser cutter's home position).
  • Margins: space to keep clear round the edge.

• Between shapes, From the edge, and Bleed.

For Best Fit and Easy Cut:

• Sort shapes by: the order pieces are tried in (Auto tries them all).
• Guillotine Split: how the space left after each piece is divided up (Easy Cut).
• Scoring Method: which solution wins: Area Used (least media) or Largest Free Area (the biggest usable offcut).
• Score weighted to last sheet for multiple sheets: prefer solutions that leave the most free space on the last sheet.
• Annotate Copies: label copies “1 of 4”, “2 of 4” and so on.

For Shape Nest:

• Engine: Auto (picks the best for each nest and says which and why), Standard, Tight (packs closer, for example lettering about a sixth shorter, and usually faster) or Both (runs the two at once and lists the best nests of either).
• Accuracy: how closely outlines are followed: Auto, High (0.05 mm), Middle (0.2 mm) or Low (0.5 mm).
• Default angles: how pieces may turn: 90°, Every 45°, 180° or No turning.
• Search: how long to look for a better layout.
• Place small shapes inside larger ones: use the middle of an O, the bowl of a G, or big enough holes in a part (slower, so off by default; drill holes and small counters are left alone).
• Keep artwork under each die line together: the artwork moves with its die line.
• Group the artwork with its die line: makes Apply much faster on big jobs.
• Locked artwork stays (nest around it): locked artwork is left where it is, and pieces are nested round it.
• Move die lines to their own layer after Apply, Move nest paths to a non-printing layer after Apply.

Tools to prepare stickers and graphics for Shape Nest:

• Nesting path from: what outline to nest by: Auto (a nest path, then a die line, then the shape's outline), Die line only, Die line + visible artwork, Shape outline (each item or group as it is, for CNC and laser), Visible size (the box including strokes) or Bounding box.
• Expand shape, Smooth, Include strokes in the outline, Create Nest Path: draw a nest path round artwork with no die line (for example a sticker with a white border).
• Die line spots, Die line offset, Create Die Line: make die lines in your cut colour.
• Bleed, Create Clipping Mask, Clipping masks (Off, Auto or Always): clip artwork that spills past its die line.

• 1 - Use Selected: add the selected artwork to the list. Don't change the artwork between this step and Apply, or it won't match.
• The list: each piece with its Quantity (more than one duplicates the artwork), Width, Height, Rotate and Grain. For quoting you can type sizes without any artwork.
• Clear, Rotate All, Rotate None.
• 2 - Calculate Nesting: work out the layouts. With Shape Nest, Keep trying searches more from the best so far, and Best nest searches for up to 5 minutes.
• 3 - Apply To Selection (or 3 - Apply to artwork): move your artwork into the layout shown.
• Create Template Document: a new document with labelled boxes for the layout, to keep with the job or quote.

• Solutions: the layouts found, to choose from.
• Preview: the chosen layout. Generate Artwork Preview shows pictures of your artwork in it. Show or hide the Nest line, Die line and Pictures.
• Summary: the total printed area, used media area and media area, for quoting.

• Units: the units for sizes in the list.
• Annotate Font Size, Label Font Size: text sizes.
• Rectangle, Rotated Rectangle, Failed to Place: the colours used in previews and templates.
• Add border around prints, Border Width, Border Offset, Border Color.
• Output Scale: draw templates at a smaller scale.

1. Make sure each sticker has a die line (or use Create Die Line or Create Nest Path).
2. Select them all. On Quick Nesting, choose Shape Nest - stickers and graphics, set Between shapes, tick Allow Rotations.
3. Press Nest selected items on Artboard.

1. On Advanced Nesting, choose Best Fit, Fit to: Vertical Roll and the roll width.
2. Type the sizes and quantities into the list (no artwork needed).
3. Press 2 - Calculate Nesting and read the Summary: the roll length and media used.

• Group each sticker's artwork with its die line first (or tick Group the artwork with its die line): Apply is many times faster on big sheets.
• Use Tight or Both for lettering and odd shapes; Auto chooses well for most jobs.
• For simple rows and columns of one design, Step and Repeat is quicker.

• Rolls: the artboard is sized to the length the nest needs.
• New artboards are made next to the active artboard. If there isn't room on the canvas, move the artboard to the top left of the canvas first.

• 1.0.2
  • Fixed: Best Fit and Easy Cut on a roll size the artboard to the roll's length, and keep the full gap between stroked shapes.
  • Fixed: Quick Nesting's Expand Width / Height grows the artboard, and Stop no longer leaves it stuck.
  • Improved: faster with hundreds of die lines and thousands of pieces, and general bug fixes and reliability.
  • Fixed: the Help button opens this script's help page.
• 1.0.1: Fixed: Shape Nest stopped with “Required value is missing” when it marked artwork that is not under a die line.
• 1.0.0
  • New: Shape Nest has a second engine, Tight, that packs shapes closer together (lettering about a sixth shorter in our tests) and usually finds a layout faster.
  • New: Engine in Options: Auto picks the best engine for each nest and says which and why, or choose Standard, Tight, or Both (runs the two at once and lists the best nests of either).
  • Improved: with Place small shapes inside larger ones, Tight also uses the holes big enough to take a shape (drill holes and small counters are left alone).
• Older changes: PowerScripts Release Notes