File Supply Guides

How to Supply Your File(s) For Printing?

Please read these guidelines carefully before supplying us with your files for printing. Unfortunately, if submitted artwork does not comply with these guidelines, this may result in a delay in the production of your order.

File Format

We can accept files in a range of formats, however, some are better than others. Ideally, all files should be supplied in PDF or TIFF format. Please ensure you flatten your files before supplying, as unflattened files can be very large and may result in a delay to your order.

If you aren’t able to supply a PDF or TIFF file, we can also accept Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and InDesign files, although please be aware that there may be issues with missing fonts or images with these file types. Microsoft Word and Powerpoint files are also accepted, however, please note that these are not best suited for designing print-ready artwork. We will convert all file types to PDF before printing, and a proof emailed for you to check – this may delay your order slightly, so if time is critical, please provide us with a problem-free PDF!

Bleeds & Printer Marks

If your print design requires graphic images to be printed to the edge of the finished page size i.e. with no white border, then you need to produce your design slightly oversized i.e. with Printers Bleed.  For such artwork files submitted for digital printing you are strongly advised to supply all such artwork with a 3mm bleed allowance on all edges. Please do not provide artwork with any printers marks (including crop marks).

Resolution

All artwork should be at 300dpi resolution or in Vector format for the best quality print results. We can print from lower resolution files, but resultant prints using such files, may appear blurry and pixelated. If we notice that your file is unsuitable to achieve acceptable print quality, we will contact you prior to printing. Please note that this may delay your order slightly.

Margins and Borders

Margins are very important! Please make sure that all text content that you require to be printed is at least 5mm away from the edge of your artwork. Anything closer is at risk of being cut off when your job is trimmed to size – and it never looks good having text that close to the edge! We’d also strongly advise against having printed borders around the edge of your page, as even a fraction of a millimetre of image shift on our printers can make them look uneven.

Document Colour Mode

To avoid any nasty surprises when you see your final job, we’d strongly recommend converting your artwork to CMYK before sending us your files. If you have created your designs using the RGB colour space, you will have been working with brighter, fluorescent colours which aren’t easily reproducible in print.

Spelling and Text

Finally, proof read your artwork! Checking your spellings and text before sending us your files for print is vital, and could save you from having to re-order!

If you have any queries regarding the supply of artwork, please don’t hesitate to contact us.