Printing Guidelines

Our basic pricing is based on receving print-ready files, and we’ve listed some guidelines below. If you need help, we offer excellent prepress services

Having your artwork properly prepared will lower the amount of prepress time we need to spend on your file and save you money.

Here are some tips to help:

Use the right type of images

Images you get from the Internet will not print properly. Press quality images need to be 300 dpi (dots per inch). Images you get from the Internet will only be 96 dpi.

Files formatted in Word, Publisher, and Powerpoint are not suitable for print.

Check color separations

Offset printing with process color traditionally uses 4 colours Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (CMYK) to produce full color images. The applications listed above all allow you to do this. In addition, spot colors may be used wherein every color is represented by a particular ink.

To print properly, files must be CMYK, not RGB. Word, Publisher and Powerpoint will only allow files to be created in RGB, and thus are not suitable for print. Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Quark Xpress all allow files to be created in CMYK and are suitable for print projects.

Check Trim and bleed areas

Don’t forget that printed products get trimmed. Something that you want to run off the edge of the page is called full bleed. Bleeds should extend a minimum of .125 inches from the trim line, and for safety should also be .125 inches inside the trim line.

Fonts and Linked Images

The best way for us to reproduce your file exactly is to convert fonts to outlines and save your file as a pdf. This will ensure that your document prints exactly as you designed it.

If you send us an Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, or Quark file where fonts are not converted to outlines, you must include the fonts used in the document in order for us to print it.

InDesign, Quark Xpress support linked images. If you submit your InDesign, or Quark Xpress file this way, please include the linked images so we can print them.