We have built a reputation within the media industry for impeccable customer service backed up by an excellent finished product and extensive knowledge of the processes behind what we do.
We’ll check over your artwork carefully to find anything we can that may alter the desired quality of your finished product. These checks can make absolutely sure things will come out just as you intended. We have two options, please see below.
From time-to-time, things go wrong, but more than 99% of our print jobs are of excellent standard and arrive just how the customer wanted them. We have every confidence in the service we offer to you, which is why we need to make you aware of a few things before we begin printing your material so there’s no horrible surprises when you receive your stunning new marketing material.
Standard Artwork Check
Superior Artwork Check
Your print job will be handled at every stage by competent professionals who have worked in the industry for many years and know the processes inside out, and so you can rest assured we’ll point anything out to you along the way if we feel it will add to the image or quality of your finished product. PLEASE ENSURE that the files you send us are setup to the correct specifications. You may have been designing for a while or be a complete novice but please read the following pages carefully and ensure our specifications are met as some may be different from other printers. Sticking to our specs ensures that your files will print as expected.
This will add one business day to your turnaround time. The above Artwork Checks are just that...checks. If you require us to amend your files instead of re-supplying them yourself this will incur additional charges.
ARTWORK CHECKS... • • •
Spelling, grammar or if your document makes sense That it fits with your brand guidelines That the colour matches previously printed documents
Check all spelling, grammar and meanings. If you don’t understand what you’ve said, will the person who you’re trying to attract?
WE ARE UNABLE TO PROVIDE:
Check all typography, fonts, spacing and whether these fit in with your corporate image or brand guidelines.
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Check you’ve included everything you need as once it’s gone to print, it’s too late to add anything or take anything out.
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Check your corporate colours, logos, images and all other brand assets represent your brand well. Would the colours put people off?
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BOOKLET
PRINTING.CO.UK
The UK’s No.1 Low-Cost Booklet Printer
£25+vat
This comprehensive series of final technical checks ensures that your file complies with production requirements. We thoroughly recommend you let us do this as we can look for most of the common pitfalls and amend. We’ll check sizes and resolution of your document, that all fonts are embedded, colours are in CMYK format as well as point out any other areas we feel to be detrimental.
WE DON’T CHECK: Before you approve the proof we’ve sent you, we need you to check carefully for the following errors that commonly occur as we can’t be held responsible for them if they are noticed after you’ve had your order delivered:
FREE
We give this basic check to all files that are supplied to us to print, regardless of how big or small the job is. We check your artwork is the correct size including bleed and in CMYK format ready for print.
Printed digital proofs (as these are not an accurate colour representation) Guarantee that the colours will match your previously printed documents Printing in Pantone colours
COLOUR TOLERANCE Please be aware that colour variation is inherent in any print process. Do not expect a perfect match to your chosen colour or a perfect match to previously printed documents. The diagram below will gives you an idea of this variation. _
Lower Tolerance
PLEASE NOTE THAT:
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Colours will print slightly differently to how they appear on screen Artwork you’ve submitted or approved is ultimately your responsibility If you haven’t allowed bleed the finished print may have a white border on each edge
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Chosen Colour
Upper Tolerance
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BOOKLET
PRINTING.CO.UK
The UK’s No.1 Low-Cost Booklet Printer
A1 A2
BLEED: 600x847mm TRIM: 594x841mm
Setting Your Page Size - Bleed etc… It’s very important that you set your page size correctly. If you don’t, parts of your design may be chopped off, look off-centre, or have areas of undesired white space. Here’s what to do: 1.
Find the product size you require from the common page sizes opposite
4.
Make a note of the Trim Size. This is the size you should set your page in your In Design/Illustrator document.
2.
You’ll see that the Bleed dimensions are 4mm larger than the trim. This difference is known as the ‘bleed’ – 3mm on all four sides – that’s approximately where our automated guillotines will make their cuts. The bleed allows for any small variations in this cutting. Please add 3mm bleed on each edge in the ‘document setup’.
BLEED EDGE – supply your file at this size
BLEED: 426x600mm TRIM: 420x594mm
A3
TRIM EDGE – this is the finished size of the product
BLEED: 303x426mm TRIM: 297x420mm
A4
BLEED: 216x303mm TRIM: 210x297mm
A5
BLEED: 154x216mm TRIM: 148x210mm
A6
Fold or perforation line
(POSTCARD SIZE)
BLEED: 111x154mm TRIM: 105x148mm
Bleed Edge - supply your file to us at this size Trim Edge - this is the finished size of the product Quiet Area - 4mm clearance from the trim edge & any folds for all important elements
7.
Please leave a ‘Quiet Area’ of 4mm (10mm for Booklets and Posters) from the trim edge and also any folds or creases. Setup some guidelines to help keep within this area. Avoid placing any important objects such as text or logos within this quiet area. This will make your job look more professional and ensure no nasty surpries during the trimming process.
A7 BLEED: 80x111mm TRIM: 74x105mm
Business Card
/3 A4
1
BLEED: 216x105mm
(OR DL SIZE) TRIM: 210x99mm
BLEED: 91x61mm TRIM: 85x55mm
DON’T FORGET... All images & colours must be converted to CMYK. All images should be high resolution (300dpi at 100%)
BOOKLET
PRINTING.CO.UK
The UK’s No.1 Low-Cost Booklet Printer
DON’T FORGET... To ensure you have 4mm Quiet Area from the inside of the trim edge
BOOKLET
PRINTING.CO.UK
The UK’s No.1 Low-Cost Booklet Printer
Some things can look great on screen, but not when printed. Please see some common pitfalls that we encounter below: CONVERT TO CMYK Your computer, scanner, digital camera and monitor use a combination of three colours: Red, Green and Blue (RGB). Printing presses use four different colours to produce the same – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (or CMYK – also known as Process Colour).
BORDERS Avoid using borders where possible (especially on small items such as business cards), since even a half millimetre movement when guillotined could make your border look uneven.
IMAGES & COLOURS MUST BE CONVERTED TO CMYK.
ALIGNING ELEMENTS TO FOLDS Avoid trying to line up design elements with folds or creases. There’s a chance they may not land perfectly on the fold or crease which can look unprofessional.
If you don’t perform the conversion yourself, our process will apply an industry standard profile RGB to CMYK conversion meaning that colours may not print as you expected. We use Process CMYK Colour, so all Pantone Spot colours must be converted to CMYK and changed to ‘process colour’. If you don’t convert spot colours to process, then objects may not appear on your printed job. ®
IMAGES / PHOTOGRAPHS ALL IMAGES SHOULD BE HIGH RESOLUTION at the size you are going to use them (300dpi at 100%). Please always consider the dpi in relation to final size your image will be used at. ALL IMAGES SHOULD BE CONVERTED TO CMYK. TINTS Be careful with watermarks/tints, if they’re too heavy it can make text or writing difficult to read. We recommend using a tint between 5%-7% for the best results. We cannot guarantee to print below 5%. Tints usually print much lighter than they appear on screen. BLACK INK Single colour black:
Made from 100% black ink (100k). This is ideal for small areas less than 2cm2 such as text or logos. On areas of over 2cm2 in size, single colour black can appear washed out and uneven. To avoid this issue on larger areas please use Rich Black.
Rich black:
Consists of 100% black (100k) and 40% cyan (40c). Rich black should be used on larger areas to ensure an even, dark coverage, as the second ink colour disguises any inconsistencies.
Never use Rich Black on small text - a blurred effect could occur due to deviances in registration. SET OFF To avoid set-off our recommended ink coverage limit is 230%. The colours should contain a total of 230% or less when you add together cyan, magenta, yellow and black. TRANSPARENCY EFFECTS / LAYER EFFECTS Ensure that your flattener/raster effect settings are correctly set at high resolution output.
OVERPRINT Be careful with overprint settings. If you set objects to overprint, they will not ‘knock-out’ the background, and will print very differently to what you see on screen. If unsure, please ask.
HAIRLINES Hairlines are ‘device dependent’. This means that they print at different thicknessess on different machines. Please use a 0.25pt stroke. EMBEDDING IMAGES Some of the graphics packages allow you to ‘embed’ files. It’s best practise to supply the images as linked files. TEXTURE FILLS & OLE OBJECTS These print erratically (or not at all). Always convert any of these to a high resolution bitmap. POSTSCRIPT FILLS Please avoid as they give a low resolution repeat effect that can print erratically.
Below are a few extra things to think about before starting to design your booklet. DESIGN AS SINGLE PAGES Create a separate page in your artwork for each page of your Booklet. You can supply as a multi-page document or as one document per page. Please don’t supply as “printer’s pairs” or spreads. Please supply to us as a single multi page high resolution pdf. ADD 3MM BLEED TO EACH SIDE Booklets need more bleed than other products. Look at the finished page size of the Booklet. Add 3mm to all sides of your page – a total of 6mm across each axis. You even need to add bleed to the edge which forms the spine. Our process chops this off and merges the spine together. AVOID OBJECTS WHICH CROSS PAGES It’s unlikely that objects which cross pages will line up exactly. It’s best to avoid them, or accept that there will be some vertical movement throughout your Booklet. EXTEND YOUR MARGINS As a result of creep, we’d advise you to increase your Quiet Area margin to 10mm for booklets to avoid anything being chopped off.
BOOKLET
BOOKLET
The UK’s No.1 Low-Cost Booklet Printer
The UK’s No.1 Low-Cost Booklet Printer
PRINTING.CO.UK
PRINTING.CO.UK