METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ARRANGING A PLURALITY OF ORDERS FOR PRINTED ARTICLES

A method is provided for arranging a plurality of orders for printed articles in order to reduce wasted space when printing the orders in multiple column's. A plurality of orders for at least one printed article are obtained, and the orders are sorted according to the number of printed articles in each order to produce a sorted arrangement of the orders. For each successive order in the sorted arrangement of orders, the order is placed in a column which currently has a lowest number of total printed articles. In a preferred embodiment, the first K orders in the sorted arrangement of orders are placed in columns 1 to K, where K is the total number of columns. Also provided is a system for producing custom printed articles.