Producing your own artwork - important bit
You have made the decision to design produce your own artwork for print. A word of warning. Sometimes, print jobs can turn out to be a lot more complicated than it first appears, reprographics is definitely one of those areas. Here is a brief guide of how to avoid costly mistakes. Follow these very brief tips and it may enable us to print your print job without finding additional costs.
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Send your print job by email, upload or disk, this save a great deal of time. Post a proof and purchase order. |
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The best file to send is a .PDFX file. Anything else may carry a file handling charge. |
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All full colour litho work MUST have full colour digital match proofs, which you have to pass. If you do not, you have absolutely no come back to incorrectly print material. This applies to any printer. |
Design
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Keep it simple, avoid using more than 4 fonts. Think about your target audience. |
Printing
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Do not place any text or image (unless it bleed off the page) with 3mm of edge. |
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You must add bleed if any item touches edge of print job including a background colour. |
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Do not use text under 4 point. |
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Do not use large areas of black with out adding percentage of CMY. |
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All images must be 300dpi - avoid compression if you want higher quality. |
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Check trapping, you cannot print white. |
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Check colour space/colour management or colour profile is switched off. |
Other
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Avoid using Word, Excel or Power Point for printing, they are not suitable applications for this type of work. |
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Ensure that if you are not supplying a PDF, you include all fonts and all images with your document. |
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If you are supplying a PDF, flight check the file before sending it to us. |
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If you are sending a PDF ensure that you embed all the fonts. |
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If sending a .tif file DO NOT USE LZW compression. |
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Check that it is the right size. |
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Check the telephone number is correct. |
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95% of all errors arise from a PC based machine, if you are using a PC please check your file again. |
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Send a proof from printed the file that you send us. Check your separations are correct. |
If your file is incorrect and we have take the time to open that file, load fonts, flight check, proof, return file, recheck new file, this all carries a cost. IT IS NOT FREE.
We are always happy to take you through the process to eliminate errors, so if you have any doubts please telephone or simply ask us to produce your print job, it may surprised you how little it costs. Quite often we can reset a print job quicker than we can correct it.