Print, Finish & Artwork

“You can create a PDF file from most programs now, and it’s easiest file for printers to use. When saving your PDF you can select to include crop marks and bleed, you can also ensure the resolution you want to save the file at. If you are designing a brochure, supply the PDF as separate pages, not spreads, this includes the front and back cover, and don’t try and impose your brochure, your printers will do that using their imposition software.

You can also run a preflight check in Adobe Acrobat, and you can set it up to check for various things, such as image resolution, bleeds, spot colours etc. This is really helpful to check that you haven’t missed anything.”

These days many clients like to design their own work and send a print ready PDF if so no problem.However for many clients we offer basic design work for everyday items of print such as business cards, stationery and leaflets. If you have a design project in mind we can help through an in-house service or working collaboratively with one of our design partners.

“Elgin Printing can print a wide array of printed items from company stationery through to high quality marketing material such as brochures, newsletters, postcards, brochures, business cards and posters.

Larger volume print work is produced using high quality offset litho, whereby printing plates are made. A range of print finishing options are also available to enhance your printed product such as soft touch lamination, die cutting, foiling and spot UV varnish. If you want to create a great impression then offset with a special effect could be the choice for you due to its tactile nature.”

When your deadline is looming digital print is often the most flexible option. Work can often be produced while you wait or same day. Digital print is ideal for those last minute requirements and is suited for smaller items such as leaflets, postcards, menus, PowerPoint presentations, look books and brochures. These items are often produced using digital print. A range of print finishing options are also available wire and coil binding, Perfect binding and booklet binding incls crease, fold, stitch and trim.

Most documents will be created in one of the standard ‘A paper sizes’, please use this graphic as a guide to sizing your document correctly. Please ensure you add bleed to your document, see below

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kcn4vvepcvzks2a/paper-guide%20fixed.png?dl=0

If your artwork runs to the edge of a page it will need a bleed. This means the artwork will bleed over the edge, usually printers ask for 3mm. When the artwork is printed, it’s printed on a larger oversized sheet then trimmed down to the right size. If you don’t allow for a bleed your artwork might end up not running to edge of the page and have a white gap. Include crop marks when you save your file, this will show the printers where your bleed is and where they should trim the document.

“It’s important that when you send a document to print you convert the fonts to outlines. This basically means that rather than the type being an editable font, you change it into a shape. This will stop any font issues occurring at the printer’s side and ensures your content can’t reflow. In Adobe Illustrator or Indesign it’s as simple as selecting all your type and then clicking Type> Create Outlines.

Important: Always save out a separate file once you’ve changed type to outlines, don’t overwrite your original file, ensuring that file remains editable.”

“You can create a PDF file from most programs now, and it’s easiest file for printers to use. When saving your PDF you can select to include crop marks and bleed, you can also ensure the resolution you want to save the file at. If you are designing a brochure, supply the PDF as separate pages, not spreads, this includes the front and back cover, and don’t try and impose your brochure, your printers will do that using their imposition software.

You can also run a preflight check in Adobe Acrobat, and you can set it up to check for various things, such as image resolution, bleeds, spot colours etc. This is really helpful to check that you haven’t missed anything.”

If your file has unusual effects or transparencies, its far better to send flattened transparencies, just incase something goes wrong along the way. If you want to make sure it’s going to look as its supposed to it might be worthwhile sending your printer a flat JPEG of your artwork alongside your PDF or even sending then a printed hard copy that they can check against.

Make sure your template clearly shows where the fold or cutting guide is, use a separate colour for the guides that really contrasts against the artwork, leave this colour set as a spot colour and ensure the guide is set to ‘overprint’.

As with die cutting guides, define the artwork that you want to foil block or varnish in your PDF file as a separate colour, again left as a spot colour. If you prefer you can supply a separate PDF file with just the area you want foil blocking or Spot gloss UV