Creating a Print File: 5 Tips For Fabulous Results
Printed flyers, postcards, and brochures are excellent ways to promote your brand to potential customers. You undoubtedly pumped a lot of money into getting the design portion of the work just right. And then it’s time to create the print file. Here are five tips to ensure your final product looks fabulous.
1. Select High-Resolution Files
There is nothing worse than seeing unreadable and blurry images and icons on your printed brochure. To avoid this, set your image software to a DPI of 300, which means the printer uses 300 dots when printing every square inch of the page.
2. Create With CMYK Colors
Printers use a different color system than digital ones and consist of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black blends. Known commonly as CMYK, this system doesn’t offer as broad a color range as its digital counterpart. Before sending your project to print, double-check that it is created in CMYK.
3. Allow for Bleed
Bleed is defined as the blank space intentionally left around the edge of the design to cut the paper in the final product. Before we print your project, we advise you on our required amount of bleed so you can set the correct parameters in your design software. We also offer professional design services if you need additional assistance.
4. Use Vector Images
Your design may look stunning in your creative software on your computer screen. However, that’s no guarantee it will look the same in print when you produce a much larger product like a poster or a smaller business card. To make sure your design scales correctly when printed, use vector images. These images are created to look perfect no matter what size you set for them. Avoid raster images as they tend to blur on the printed page unless you happen to get the resolution set at the right density.
5. Proofread Carefully
We can’t emphasize enough the importance of meticulously proofing your project before you send it over for printing. Failing to take the detailed focus needed to check over your work could result in a costly mistake later. Remember, unlike digital designs, it isn’t possible to spot and fix a mistake the moment you see it. Any errors need to be corrected before printing. It’s best to have more than one person proof the design, so nothing is accidentally missed.
First, check the spelling and fix any typos. Pay close attention to homophones (words with the same pronunciation but different spellings and meanings), so you don’t write ‘their’ when you mean ‘there’ or ‘it’s’ when the correct word is ‘its.’ Next, look over the grammar and make sure the right words are capitalized and the right verb tense is used with your nouns. Finally, scrutinize the punctuation so every sentence has a period and any quotes are correctly formatted.
When You’re Ready to Print
Following these five tips for your print file will give you the beautiful print results you want so your potential customers get the right first impression of your company. At Quality Printing, we operate by our core values of reliability, superior quality, and stellar customer service. Contact us today for a quote on your next printing project.