Before you send your file: the checklist

Before you send us a file for printing, run through this list. If all six points are covered, the job prints the way you designed it, with no delays and no surprises at the cutting stage. The values below apply to business cards, flyers, menus and print up to A3.

1. Keep text and key elements at least 3 mm inside the edge. Cutting always has a small tolerance, so anything that must not be trimmed (text, logos, phone numbers) stays inside the safe zone.
2. Add 3 mm of bleed. Backgrounds, photos and colours that reach the edge should extend 3 mm beyond the finished size, so no white sliver shows after cutting.
3. Turn on crop marks. Enable them when you export the PDF; they tell the guillotine exactly where to cut.
4. Send a vector PDF or a high-resolution image. A PDF exported from design software is best. If you send an image (JPG, PNG, TIFF), it should be 300 dpi at the final size.
5. Flatten effects. Shadows, transparency and blend modes should be flattened (or rasterized) before export, so they print as you see them.
6. Convert fonts to curves. Turn text into outlines so the typeface cannot change if we don't have the same font installed.

Posters, banners, stickers and shop windows use different values. See the table in Bleed and safe margins.

Large file? Here is how to send it.

Not sure about something? Send us the file as it is. We check every file before printing and tell you if anything needs fixing.