useful information

Artwork Formats

Supply on disc

We can accept your files on a wide range of media and produced in various software programmes on both Mac and PC.

PDF stands for Portable Document Format and is universally accepted as the most convenient file format to use when sending documents to print. The key word is portable as the PDF is intended to appear exactly the same on any computer or application. With most, if not all of its editing capabilities prohibited, it is the most reliable way of ensuing that the document you design is reproduced correctly. Providing only that the PDF is made correctly

A PDF can be made by either creating a PostScript file and processing it through Acrobat Distiller, or using the native application to export the layout as a PDF. In most cases the default Press Quality setting is sufficient, or a good starting point. However, to help you get the best results from your printing project, we have detailed a few guidelines to help you properly configure the PDF settings.

CROP MARKS AND BLEED
Bleed is a term used to describe elements of artwork that touch the edge of the page and consequently extends (bleeds) beyond the trim edge. This extended edge is then trimmed off, ensuring a clean cut with no white margin. Bleed is added manually at the designing stage by hanging any pictures or graphics off the edge of the document boundaries. We recommend 3mm. By setting the bleed option in the PDF dialogue box to 3mm, this extra artwork is captured by the PDF.

Booklets should be supplied as individual pages.

Crop Marks indicate to us where the trim edge is, and can be added to your PDF. Please provide a PDF with 3mm bleed and crop marks

For Digital print orders all artwork supplied should be set up correctly for print. Files supplied in Quark Xpress should have all colours converted to CMYK and not left as Pantone or RGB. There should be 3mm bleed on all artwork where necessary and all Illustrator and Freehand files should be supplied with all fonts outlined and saved as EPS files.
For booklets and brochures printed digitally, artwork should be supplied in designer pairs, not printers’ pairs.

COMPRESSION
PDF Compression is used to cleverly discard some data and reduce the size of the file. Ideally use no compression but this can result in very large files in some circumstances. Otherwise ZIP is perfectly suitable for just about anything. JPEG will discard some information and could decrease the quality of the photographic images.

ALL ARTWORK SUBMITTED SHOULD BE SENT WITH A PRINTED PROOF.

Media Accepted

Zip Discs (100mb), CDs, DVDs, Floppy Disc, Email, ISDN or Online.
Alternatively, a secure method of getting your artwork to us is by using our upload facility (see our link below).

Upload your artwork

Software

(All software is usually the latest version available as we update frequently)

MAC
• Quark Xpress (please avoid using Passport or Multi-Language versions)
• Adobe Illustrator (CS2 or below, fonts outlined)
• Adobe Photoshop (CS2, PSD, tif, jpeg, eps all in CMYK)
• Freehand MX (EPS files only and all fonts outlined)
• PDF (high resolution for print)
• InDesign CS2

Please ensure all artwork has 3mm bleed where necessary

PC
• Quark Xpress
• Corel Draw (exported as tif, jpeg or eps)
• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Publisher (2000 format)*
• Adobe Photoshop (tif, jpeg, eps all in CMYK)
• PDF (high resolution for print)

• InDesign

Please ensure all artwork has 3mm bleed where necessary
For all other systems and programmes, please call first.

Fonts

EMBED FONTS
Embedding fonts ensures the fonts used in the document are contained within the PDF file, and all text will be correct when we receive the file. The Embed Font tick box is usually checked by default in the PDF dialogue window. Just check to make sure.

Fonts should either be outlined if incorporated in Illustrator or Freehand EPS files, or supplied with job if used in Quark.

Scans

RESOLUTION
Any photos used should be 300dpi. Most PDF settings allow the user to down sample to a lower resolution. This is not necessary and should be left at Keep Resolution

COLOUR
All photos should be CMYK format, so the PDF setting should leave the colour unchanged. Just check it is not set to convert the colour to RGB.

Any conversion work from RGB to CMYK will be charged for.