Abstract: An overwidth slitting method slits a metal strip into two lengthwise pieces while trimming the side edges from the strip. The metal strip is placed on parallel spaced apart conveyors adjacent a slitter for conveying the strip to the slitter. The conveyors are raised above a plurality of vacuum cups which are disposed between the conveyors and are spaced along the length of the strip. The raised metal strip is aligned with respect to the slitter and the raised conveyors are lowered to a position where the bottom surface of the aligned strip engages the vacuum cups between the conveyors. A vacuum is applied to the vacuum cups for holding the strip in alignment relative to the slitter and then the metal strip is advanced on the conveyors into the slitter while sequentially releasing the vacuum from each vacuum cup engaged with the bottom surface of the metal strip as it advances. The advancing metal strip is simultaneously slit into two lengthwise pieces while the side edges are trimmed therefrom.