Borderless A1 Printing: How to Stop Wasting Media on Every Job

Some customers like a white border framing their printed image, but most prefer the full, edge-to-edge look — it simply has more impact. The trouble is, on plenty of printers that means printing oversized and trimming down to size afterwards, throwing away the unprinted margin every single time. It’s frustrating, it’s wasteful, and over hundreds of prints it adds up to a meaningful amount of wasted media.

What borderless printing actually means

On a Canon imagePROGRAF, you don’t need to trim anything. Tell the printer you don’t want a border, and it prints edge-to-edge on any size roll — no white margin, no offcut to throw away. The printer’s sensor detects the edges of the roll accurately and prints to the full width, rather than relying on a cutter to remove unwanted margin after the fact.

Which models support it

The entire current Canon imagePROGRAF range can be set to print borderless, with one small exception: the compact TC-21 and TC-21M leave a 0.5mm margin on the left and right sides. Every other model in the range gives you a genuine, full-bleed print with nothing to trim off.

Why it’s worth switching on

Beyond the obvious cost saving on media, it removes a manual step from the workflow entirely — no need to oversize your artwork, print, then cut it down. For anyone running regular poster, photo or point-of-sale jobs, that’s less media wasted, less time spent trimming, and a cleaner result straight off the printer.