How to prepare files for printing — a practical guide

There is a situation every printer knows by heart: a client sends a file, everything looks fine, but on paper the text is cut off, the logo is blurred, and the blue has suddenly turned purple. In most cases neither the designer nor the equipment is at fault — the file simply was not prepared for print.

The good news: preparing a print file is not rocket science. There are around ten things worth checking before you send it, and if they are in order, the job runs smoothly at the printer — no extra questions and no surprises after printing. In this article we go through them step by step, whether you are preparing business cards, a booklet, stickers or a large-format banner.

1. Choose the right file format

The best format for print is PDF. Not JPG, not Word, not PowerPoint, and not a screenshot from a presentation. A PDF preserves vector graphics, fonts and colour profiles exactly as you saw them on your own screen.

PDF/X-4 or PDF/X-1a — print industry standards. If your software offers one of these export profiles, use it.
PDF (Press Quality / High Quality Print) — a good alternative when an X standard is not available.
TIFF — suitable for photographs and large-format images when there is no vector artwork.
AI, EPS, INDD — acceptable, but then all linked images and fonts have to be supplied as well.

What is better not to send: Word and Excel documents, low-resolution exports from online design tools, PNGs with no background information, and screenshots. They work as a reference or an idea, but not as the final print file.

2. Mind the resolution — 300 dpi is the gold standard

Resolution determines how detailed the image will be on paper. For a screen 72 dpi is enough, but for print that is far too little — the result will look pixelated.

300 dpi — the standard for business cards, booklets, catalogues, magazines and packaging. Anything held close to the eye.
150 dpi — enough for posters and smaller banners viewed from a couple of metres.
72–100 dpi — acceptable for very large banners and building signage viewed from a distance.

Important: resolution is measured at the final size. An image at 300 dpi at 5×5 cm, stretched to 50×50 cm, becomes 30 dpi. Software can add pixels, but it cannot invent detail that was never in the original.

3. Add bleed

This is the most common mistake. If the design runs all the way to the edge — a background colour, a photo, a coloured band — it has to extend 3 mm beyond the final size on every side.

Why? Because a guillotine is never perfectly precise. The usual tolerance is about ±1 mm. If the background stops exactly on the trim line, some copies will show a white sliver. With a 3 mm margin it never appears.

A practical example for a business card with a final size of 90×50 mm: the file should be 96×56 mm (90+3+3 and 50+3+3).

4. Leave a safe zone for text

Bleed is one half of the story — the other is the safe zone. All important content (text, logo, contact details, QR codes) should stay at least 3–5 mm inside the trim line.

For business cards and flyers, 3 mm is enough.
For brochures that are glued or stapled, 5–7 mm, because part of the page disappears into the fold.
For stickers with rounded corners, 4 mm, because the rounding eats into the corner area.

The check is simple: imagine every edge shifting by a millimetre. Does the text still look neatly centred? If so, you are fine.

5. Convert colours to CMYK

A screen creates colour with light (RGB); a printing press creates it with ink (CMYK — cyan, magenta, yellow, black). Some vivid RGB colours — especially neon green, electric blue and bright orange — simply cannot be reproduced in CMYK. In print they come out duller.

So export your file in the CMYK colour space rather than RGB. That way you see the real result while you are still designing and can adjust it, instead of being surprised afterwards.

Two details that save a lot of jobs:

Black text at small sizes should be 100% K (C0 M0 Y0 K100), not four-colour black. Otherwise the letters look doubled if the inks are even slightly out of register.
Deep black backgrounds over large areas are the opposite — there a rich black works better, for example C40 M30 Y30 K100. Pure K100 across a large area looks greyish.

If your brand has a precisely defined corporate colour, it is worth discussing separately — on some jobs the answer is a Pantone colour, which in offset printing can be laid down as a separate ink to get an exact match.

6. Outline your fonts

If the printer's computer does not have the font you used, the system will substitute another one — and the whole layout falls apart. There are two ways to prevent this:

Embed the fonts in the PDF. Most export profiles do this automatically, but it is worth checking the export settings.
Convert the text to outlines (Create Outlines / Convert to Curves). The letters become graphic shapes and the font is no longer needed.

The second option is safer, with one condition: once converted, the text can no longer be edited. So always keep an editable version for yourself — next year, when the phone number needs changing, you will thank yourself.

7. Put special elements on their own layer

If the job involves die-cutting, UV varnish, foil stamping, perforation or routing, those lines cannot simply be drawn on top of the design. They need to be:

on a separate layer with a clear name (for example cut, UV, foil);
vector outlines rather than an image;
set in a spot colour with overprint enabled, so they do not knock out the design underneath.

The same goes for fold lines in booklets and folders — mark them so there is no doubt which way the material folds.

8. Check page order and folding logic

For multi-page products — catalogues, brochures, calendars — send the file as single pages in sequence (1, 2, 3, 4...), not as ready-made spreads. The printer handles imposition according to the binding method.

Another thing that is easy to forget: for a saddle-stitched brochure the total page count has to be divisible by four (8, 12, 16, 20 pp.). If you end up with 14, pages will have to be added or removed.

On a three-panel leaflet that folds inwards, the inner panel has to be 2 mm narrower — otherwise it does not fit when folded and the paper buckles.

9. Check the file before you send it

Before you hit send, run through this short list:

Is the final size correct (and is it in millimetres, not pixels)?
Is there 3 mm of bleed on all four sides?
Is the important content inside the safe zone?
Is the colour mode CMYK?
Are the images at least 300 dpi at final size?
Are the fonts embedded or outlined?
Has the text been proofread? Seriously — read it once more. A printed typo costs the whole run.
Is the file name clear, for example business-cards-Ozols-90x50-v3.pdf?

Open the PDF full screen and look at it at 100%. Most problems — a blurred logo, overlapping text, a missing element — are obvious at that moment.

10. Requirements vary by product

The general principles are the same, but every product has its own details:

Business cards — 300 dpi, 3 mm bleed, text no smaller than 6 pt, both sides on separate pages.
Large format printing — often worked at 1:10 scale, bleed of 10–50 mm depending on the fixing method, resolution 72–150 dpi at final size.
Stickers — a die-cut outline on a separate layer is required, with a safe zone of at least 4 mm.
T-shirt printing — vector artwork or a PNG with a transparent background at 300 dpi at print size works best; bear in mind that the fabric colour affects the final shade.
Packaging — always starts from a die template supplied by the printer, with the design laid over it.

Not sure? Send it over and we will check

Nobody expects every client to master the technical side of printing. That is exactly why the NRJ team checks every file we receive before printing — we look at dimensions, bleed, resolution and colours, and if something is off we say so straight away, rather than after the run has been printed.

If the file is not quite ready, we can also fix it — add bleed, convert colours, create a die-cut outline. It is often a few minutes' work when it is done by someone who does it every day.

And if the job is still at the idea stage, have a look at which printing technology suits it best — digital printing for small runs and tight deadlines, or offset printing for larger volumes at a lower unit cost.

Got a finished file or just an idea? Send it to us — we will check the technical side, recommend a material and calculate the cost. Request a free quote.