In grade 10 I made the decision to become a designer, and set out to learn as much as I could. As you probably know, there are a number of different types of "designers", and I chose the path of becoming a print designer. Anything that you can hold in your hand that has been printed on paper, or is on a massive billboard somewhere, I create designs for.

If I’ve seen anything since choosing this career path, it’s the following two things:

1. The files I have supplied to ensure that they are "print-ready" by clients usually are not; and
2. deviantART doesn’t really have anything covering what print-ready means.

So this article is hopefully going to help you learn what your printer wants most. Whether it’s a local business that prints flyers and business cards for their customers, or just your home printer that you plug into your computer, this guide will help you finish with the best result possible - having everything looking as you intended it to.

Just two quick notes first though: I use the Adobe CS3 Creative Suite, and I also have a widescreen monitor. So if the images don't fit properly when you use the "full-size" preview, or if you don't use these programs to create your artwork, I'm really sorry!!

I realise I've written alot in this article, but onward we go!

FILETYPES

Filetypes are important because they determine whether any alterations can be made to your supplied artwork, and also how your design is handled.
The following three examples are of the most commonly used file types:

PDF

The best thing that you can do for your printer is supply them a 1-up PDF (so just one page of your artwork per page in the PDF. eg. You have a booklet that needs to be printed, and it has 4 pages, you should therefore have 4 pages in your PDF)
I’ll go into fonts soon, but if you can embed or convert your fonts, there should be no processing dramas on the printer with missing fonts. What happens here is that if your font isn’t in the printer’s font list, the printer will automatically substitute your font for one that it considers to be close – and trust me, usually that isn’t what happens. So to be safe, ensure that ALL fonts have been converted to curves.

PDF Export Settings

EPS / AI (Adobe Illustrator) / INDD (Adobe InDesign) - Vector Filetypes

EPS and AI files are more commonly used when you’re printing a label/sticker, or any artwork that is single-sided. That said, sometimes you only have a program that can assemble one page of artwork at a time. Either way, try to keep EPS and AI files to vector artwork only, and INDD to files that have more than one page of artwork.
If you’re supplying an AI or an INDD file, ensure that you have all of your links saved with your file - missing links can cause major dramas at the printers, and could possibly mean that you are charged more for them to fix/relink your file.

PSD (Adobe Photoshop) / TIFF / JPG - Raster Filetypes

If you can, keep these exclusively to files that will not need any alterations. When supplying a raster file, make sure that your dimensions/sizes are correct and also that your resolution is at least the minimum that your printer will accept. In most cases that I’ve seen, you should always have a minimum of 300dpi when using one of these filetypes.
Remember that raster files become pixelated when they are made larger than the original file size!

Microsoft Word / Publisher / Excel Documents

Businesses around the world use these programs to create their "wonderful designs" - and they can really turn out to be a print designer’s / printer’s worst nightmare!

For starters, the artwork needs to be exported into a format that the printer can use (generally a PDF file). They’re also not very easy to make alterations to like adding bleed, giving images more room away from the edge of the page or moving text. In Microsoft Word in particular, text can move when opening your file on a different computer - to play it safe, always supply these files as a PDF file.

ARTWORK ALTERATIONS

Ensure that you ask your printer how much artwork alterations will cost you - they can really turn into a hidden cost if you aren’t careful about how you supply your artwork, or if you tend to make a number of changes yourself.
That being said, you also need to ensure that if you are going to be modifying artwork, you either supply your printer with a file that they can alter, or that you can change the artwork yourself.

LINKS / FONTS

Say you’ve created a brochure, and you want to supply it to your printer in its original format (like an InDesign file for example) - make sure that you also supply the links, which are the images that you use in your brochure. If these aren’t included with your file, InDesign is unable to export your file because it knows that the links have been broken, and considers them to be "missing".

The same goes for fonts; should you not have embedded or converted them to curves, and the printer doesn’t have the fonts that you have used, InDesign will show an alert saying that they’re "missing".

Converting Fonts


To counter this, Adobe InDesign has a feature called "Package", and what it does is put your InDesign file, all links as well as all fonts used into a folder for you.
To do this, go to File > Package > Follow the prompts. I like to check all the boxes so that everything is put into the folder, and also so that I can see a report afterwards to make sure all is well.

1. 2.
3. 4.

If you’re choosing to supply an InDesign file to your printer, I strongly suggest that you do this.

SIZE

This may seem silly, but always make sure that your final artwork is the size that you’ve told your printer. Once again, it’s a case of keeping your quoted price, but also, a wrong size can mean that artwork may need to be altered - it’s all a lot of hassle and more of a headache than you need.

BLEED

If you have any part of your artwork that touches the edge, you need to make sure that it "bleeds" off. This is basically where you extend an object so that it goes off the edge of your page a certain amount, and it’s used to give the printer some leeway when the paper moves or the image shifts while printing.



If you don’t add bleed to your file, when your job is being trimmed down, you run the risk of either chopping off part of your image, or on the opposite scale, adding a white border to where your image cuts off.
I generally stick to 5mm of bleed, but no less than 3mm. That said, when designing artwork for posters, it’s usually a good idea to add up to/over 10mm. The reason for that is because there’s a lot more movement on a sheet of that size.



To add bleed, all you need to do is add 3/5/10/etc to each side of your artwork. So if you’re creating a flyer that is 210x99mm, the bleed size if you were using 3mm would be 216x105mm.

InDesign has these settings in the "Document Setup" box: File > Document Setup > Then add your bleed settings.
Note that you don’t actually need to change your document/final trimmed size - you’re only adding extra space to the outside of that image.

CROP/TRIM MARKS

These are used to show the person operating the guillotine where they need to trim your job. They also help with registering the colours used to print the artwork.



It’s habit for me to now make sure I have cropmarks on all artwork I send to be printed, even if it’s a photocopy job that doesn’t need them. It’s always better to do too much rather than not enough!
The crop/trim marks can be easily added when you are exporting your artwork to PDF format. To do that in InDesign: File > Export > Choose the exported PDF file’s destination > "Marks and Bleeds" on the left-hand side > Check the box for ‘Crop Marks’.

FOLDING / DIE-CUTTING / PERFORATING

This is where your designs can really start to become fancier, particularly if you’re making some crazy finished/trimmed shapes as your page size!
The following is an example of each "mark":

Folding

If your design needs to be folded, always ensure that you create ‘fold lines’ to show where the fold is needed.
Generally, a dashed line is used to show where a page will be folded.

Die-Cutting

Die-cutting can REALLY make a design look spectacular - but it comes at a price if you’re not using a common shape (eg rounding corners, etc).
To show where the die-cut needs to be, I use a spot/Pantone colour that hasn’t been used in my design - I do this because the spot colour’s separation only has to be removed by the printer, and it won’t print on my actual file. Remember that it’s only meant to be a guide for the printer to see where the die should be placed!

Perforating

This is usually used in ticket books or Invoice books where a tear-off section is needed.
I use a dotted line to show where the page needs to be perforated.

RESOLUTION

A stumbling block that I usually see is where customers supply their logo to us - the catch being that they’ve pulled it off of their website and it’s tiny. The same thing goes for other images like photos that have been saved off the web, and need to be used in posters or brochures.

The web uses a resolution of 72dpi, which is also your screen’s resolution. What that means is the images are made to be perfect quality when you view it on your monitor - but when you increase the size of these images for your poster for example, the quality becomes terrible (remember that raster images become pixelated when their size/dimensions are increased!).

A good rule of thumb is to use images that have a resolution of at least 300dpi, as it ensures that your work will be printed at a high quality. Using less may still be ok, but you run the risk of the images becoming pixelated.

COLOUR

Everyone loves their colours, and to make sure yours turn out how you intended them to, stick to this rule - ALWAYS use CMYK. Let me explain why.

RGB allows you to use bright colours - after all, your monitor can show all of these colours perfectly, so why shouldn’t they print the same way?
When you convert an RGB file to CMYK, you’ll notice that it becomes more ‘dull’, murky, and in some cases, it completely changes your colour!

To counter this, you can do two things:
1. Use Pantone/Spot colours instead of those fluorescent greens that Microsoft Word gives you - but it will more than likely add a decent amount to your bill; or
2. Design everything in CMYK from the beginning.
I know which one I use.

CMYK are the colours used by a printer - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (Black). If you get a magnifying glass, and put it over something that has been printed in colour, you’ll see that there will be tiny dots that make up each solid area of colour. And if you look closer, you’ll see that those dots are light blue (cyan), pink (magenta), yellow and black (key). It’s cool, isn’t it?!

RGB however is a totally different process - Red, Green and Blue. I could go into the theory of how RGB works, but it really needs an article of its own to even attempt to explain it properly.
So instead, remember that RGB should only be used for websites or things that will only be shown on a monitor or a screen, and CMYK is the process used to print on a page.



On top of all that, you also have "Spot" or Pantone colours. These colours are specially mixed to ensure that the same colour is printed each and every time. Many companies use Pantone colours as their "Corporate Colours", and actually buy licences to ensure that nobody else uses "their" colours. Sounds crazy, but you can actually get into a lot of legal trouble if you’re found to have used one of those colours in your work… But that’s just something to keep in mind.



Separation Examples

100% Black

A common mistake, and an easy one to make at that, is that files are originally created in RGB with a full-strength black. When you convert your file over to CMYK though, you’ll find that the values will change - your black is no longer "just black", and this is enough to completely change the price of your print job!

We commonly have two blacks; one is 100% K (or black), the other is 50% cyan, 50% magenta, 50% yellow and 100% black - also known as "super black". For a normal print job, 100% black will do a perfect job, but if you really want your black to look extra deep, ‘super black’ does a wonderful job! The only problem with ‘super black’ is that your job becomes a full-colour print job, and that means more money out of your pocket.

Incorrect Black:
100% Black:
Super Black:

OVERPRINTING

As a rule, I don’t use overprinting unless I absolutely need to. A good example is where a banner is being printed, and text needs to "bleed" under/over another colour; remember that you’re giving leeway to make sure nothing gets cut off or that you don’t have those ugly white lines where the colour hasn’t registered on top of the other colour.



I know that was a lot of reading, but these are the things that your local printer will want to know when you choose to print with them.
Hopefully, it helped you to understand some of the "trade" terms that are used, and that you can now apply them to your designs to achieve the best end result possible!

If you have any questions, I’ll try my absolute hardest to find you some answers - or I’m sure other deviants could also help you out!

Until next time, happy designing!