Magpie nests packaging blanks on sheets, works out the dies and the guillotine cuts, and gives you the files to run the job. This page is the tour written out: twelve steps on the sample job, each with a short clip of the page doing it; then the sample from start to finish; then what the numbers mean. In the app, Show me round under the logo plays the same steps on the live page.
Each clip is the live page with the tour running: the pointer goes to the control and works it. The sentence under each number is the one the tour says.
Drop your dielines here, DXF, CF2, PDF or SVG, or try the sample job: every blank in them is listed below.
One file or several, mixed formats if you like. Each blank found is a card with its size, how many times it is in the file, and chips for the lines kept: cut, crease, perf, score. A line the importer could not place comes back as a chip to set. Mirrored blanks can be treated as one. Start again clears the page; a job you have claimed with an account stays under Jobs.
Each blank has an order quantity: the nest works out how many fit a sheet, how many sheets the order needs and the overs.
The Blanks list has a row a blank: the Order column, the Up column, the grain for that blank and whether it may turn. Without an order, every blank in the file is placed once and the result is a set. With an order, the sheet is filled in the ratio of the order and repeated. A plain rectangle (a spacer, a lid) can be added below the list. Material grain is Free by default, any quarter turn for the fewest sheets; As drawn and Crosswise are there for board that demands a grain, for the job or for one blank. A free nest asks for the count of each blank instead, any number, and fills sheets until all are placed: a sheet of one design is nested once and cut as many times as it takes, the last sheet nested with what is left; several designs are nested sheet by sheet until the nest's time is up, after which the fullest sheet is cut again, and the result says which sheets are cut how many times.
Up puts a blank on its die two or more times, so one impression cuts several, where a blank has a die of its own.
1-up to 4-up, or interlocked, where two to four are slid into one another. On a job where each blank has a die of its own, the die and its cutter are labelled for it (2-up cutter) and the count a sheet doubles. The sample set shares its dies, so Up changes nothing there; the advisories under Routes say when another up would save sheets, with a button to try it.
The Machine section holds the job's settings, sheet, grip edge, tolerances and cutter layout, filled from a saved machine or typed here for this job.
Pick a saved machine and its numbers fill the fields; type over any of them and the change is this job's only, with the hint under the field saying Typed on this job. Save as machine writes the fields back, as the machine picked or a new one. With no machine at all the fields start at built-in values and the job works. Job specs follows the mode: a packaging job runs on a cylinder or platen die cutter, a full-sheet die cutter or a guillotine, and the choice sets what auto does (a platen takes pieces, a full-sheet die cutter takes the whole sheet); a free nest runs on a laser or router or a digital knife cutter. Switching the mode switches the list and picks its first, and a saved machine of the other kind is greyed in the picker, named as a packaging or free nest machine, until the mode is switched back. The gap is a die's own: Gap inside the die shows where a die holds more than one blank (one die over the sheet, a blank 2-up or more, interlocked), filled from a die cutter picked; pieces each under a 1-up die are spaced by the cutter tolerances alone. A free nest has Gap between blanks instead, the kerf of the laser or router plus the clearance wanted, filled from a laser or knife picked; each mode keeps its own gap, and a number typed on the job stays. Under the cutter's tolerances, Printed sheet has four fields of its own for the print grip and lays, 0 unless the board is printed; each edge keeps the larger of the two, and the job records whether the sheet is printed from those numbers, with nothing to tick.
Nest lays the blanks on the sheet, picks the dies and the guillotine cuts, and the board fills.
Auto weighs the ways to split the sheet and keeps the one with most blanks a sheet, then fewest sheets, a die a blank, fewest cuts, then the tightest die. Improve keeps searching for up to thirty seconds and keeps the layout it has unless it finds a better one. Every nest is a version of the job: Jobs lists them and any can be reopened as it was.
The line over the board says what the job is cut with, and each word jumps to its field.
The gap where a die has one, origin corner, cutter layout and mode, as set. Below it, a tab a sheet when the job runs to more than one, and the tools for a selected blank. Turn left, Turn right and Turn round set which way that design faces and pin it: its die is rebuilt that way round, the pieces are tiled again and the sheet is laid again, every impression facing that way, and Nest again keeps it; a Free grain chooses the facing only for designs with no turn set, and Clear turn hands a design back to it. The material grain is what refuses a quarter turn. Lock keeps a blank where it is, Re-nest lays the rest around it, Cut around cuts the sheet around it.
Draw a cut across the board and the sheet becomes pieces, each its own die; drag a cut and the pieces resize.
Draw a cut turns a drag on the board into a guillotine cut: side to side for a cut across, up and down for a cut up the sheet. Cuts are numbered in the order they are made, each stopping at earlier ones; the same list is under Cutter layout, By hand, where a position can be typed. Trims are the cuts that take the offcut strips off. Back to Sub-sheets, auto hands the split back to the rule.
Press + or scroll to zoom in, and close up every piece shows its dimensions; Fit brings the sheet back.
Zoomed in, drag to move about and double-click to fit. The dimensions are the distance from every cut to the blanks in its piece, the numbers a guillotine is set to; on a print layout the Dimensions button shows them at any zoom, and the PDF report always carries them.
The checks tick when the sheet is right: the gap held, no blank across a cut, all inside the margins, nicks kept and grain honoured.
Each check says what it measured. A check that fails holds the cutter files back until it is put right, and says why; the works ticket and the PDF report still download. How it was nested, below the checks, has the search and the timings.
A strip the nest leaves is the spare board: drop a file on it for a blank cut there on its own die, or tick Fill for more of this order.
The note under the board says how big the strip is. Drop a DXF, CF2, PDF or SVG on it, or press Add a file, and that file's blank joins the job: a row of its own in the Blanks list with an order of its own, laid on the strip, cut off first, on a piece and die of its own, with the rest of the sheet exactly as it was. Remove takes it off again. Fill with more of this order, in the Blanks list, fills the strip with the order instead, as overs; the board goes to one thing, so a blank dropped on it takes the fill's place.
Download the nested DXF, SVG or CF2, the die-maker pack with a DXF per die, the PDF report and the costing CSV; a plan unlocks the cutter files.
The nested DXF keeps the layers as imported, a file per sheet or one file, measured from the origin corner set in Machine. The die-maker pack is one ZIP with a DXF per die, its rule length and nicks, and a one-page job sheet. The PDF report is the works ticket and a page a sheet with the layout and dimensions. The costing CSV has a row a job and a row a sheet. A job can be set to delete its drawings once a cutter file is downloaded; the numbers stay.
That is the round: Show me round under the logo plays it again, and How to use Magpie writes it out with the numbers explained.
The small arrow beside the logo opens the menu. The tour runs on the sample job every time, so it can be played again without touching your own work; Escape or Close ends it at any step.
The sample is a set of seven carton blanks in one DXF, 24 blanks in the file, on a 1020 x 720 mm sheet gripped on the long edge. These are the screens from the tour's own run.
How many of each blank one sheet carries, as nested: Per sheet on the results strip, and the count on each sheet's tab. Without an order it is simply what was placed; with an order it is the ratio the sheet was filled in. In the example above, Blank 1 is 1 a sheet and Blank 3 is 3 a sheet.
For each blank with an order, the order divided by its blanks a sheet, rounded up; the blank that runs out last sets the run. 5,000 of Blank 1 at 1 a sheet is 5000 / 1 = 5000 sheets, and the strip says so: 5000 sheets, set by Blank 1 (5000 wanted, 1 a sheet). The advisory under Routes notes that Blank 1 fits 9 a sub-sheet turned: at 9 a sheet the same order would be 5000 / 9 = 556 sheets, rounded up from 555.6.
What the run makes beyond the order, a blank at a time: sheets times blanks a sheet, less the order. 556 sheets at 9 a sheet make 5,004, so 4 overs of Blank 1. Overs are shown when there are any; a blank with an order that comes out exact shows none. With Fill with more of this order ticked, the room the ratio leaves is filled with the order on purpose, and the overs it makes are listed.
The area of the blanks placed as a share of the sheet, the usual measure of how well a sheet is used. The tolerances (grip edge, back edge, sides) and the gap inside a die are room no blank can take, so the same blanks on a bigger press read a little lower.
Cutters is how many dies the job needs: one over the whole sheet, or one a piece when the sheet is cut into sub-sheets. A die with a blank 2-up cuts two of it an impression, so impressions a sheet is blanks a sheet divided by up. The die-maker pack carries a DXF for each.
The strip the nest leaves, by its size: Spare board: 54 x 720 mm on the first nest of the sample. A blank dropped on it is cut on a piece and die of its own and counts on the sheet like any other; more of this order on it counts as overs.
The logo menu (the arrow beside the Magpie name): Show me round, and this page. Jobs, top right: every job and version on the account, searchable, reopened as it was. Profiles: the account's machines, boards, costing and the plan. Nest, at the foot of the sidebar, is always one click away, and Improve sits under it once a layout is on the board.
The app, the terms of use and the privacy notice.