Paper Cutters and Trimmers

A guillotine cutter has a long arm attached to a sharp blade that slices through paper when pressed down. This is effective for trimming multiple pages at once. A rotary cutter has a circular blade mounted in its cutting head and trims paper in both directions by the back and forth movements of its rolling blade. This type of paper cutter cuts with higher precision and leaves the edges of your documents burr free, which is ideal for slicing single sheets of thick paper and trimming card stock.

Paper trimmers come in a range of sizes from as little as 6” to as large as 60”. Smaller units are portable and lightweight, while big ones can take up an entire desktop. Large units with wide cutting mats are best for slicing oversized sheets like posters.

So, the sizing of your paper cutter really depends on what you’re going to be cutting the most. If you mostly cut paper that’s between 9”-12”, but you may also need to trim larger-sized sheets, it may make more sense to grab a larger cutter to make sure that everything fits.

When you’re shopping for a paper cutter it’s important to think about its sheet capacity, or the number of sheets it can slice through at once. Sheet capacity can vary a lot depending on the model of paper cutter, from less than 10 pages to over 100. A model that only cuts a few pages with each stroke is ideal for an office with an occasional need for the tool. Daily and heavy users need cutters with higher capacities, so think about how often you’d use a paper cutter and go from there.

Paper cutters have exposed blades, which can be dangerous if you don’t know how to handle them safely. It’s important that a paper cutter or trimmer have built-in safety features that can help reduce the chance of injury. A common safety feature is the guard rail that protects users' fingers from swinging blades. Most cutters also have blade latch hooks, or similar mechanisms, that keep their cutting arms locked in place. These prevent accidental cuts when the tools are not in use.