To help us achieve a successful outcome with your printing need, please review these tips to ensure your file(s) meet our requirements. We will contact you if your files have any issues so you can fix and resubmit or have us repair them, if possible, for you at an hourly rate of $70 billed in 15 minute increments. The minimum charge will be 15 minutes or $17.50. These tips are based on the most common issues we encounter.

​

GRAPHICS THAT BLEED
When background colors and photos and/or other graphic elements are intended to go right to the edge of the paper, we need to have 1/8" extensions all around the layout. This is called a bleed.  Files with no bleeds when they are needed will be rejected. If you are not knowledgeable on this technical point, please review our guidelines HERE. The safest approach is to use one of our templates that fits your project. They can be found HERE. If you need help, just ask.

​

ACCEPTABLE FILE TYPES

PDF is our preferred files type but JPG and TIFF are acceptable when applicable. PDFs must be flattened so there are NO LAYERS and NO LIVE (meaning "editable") type. Do not send Microsoft office files in their native format unless we have to do editing for you. PDF only please! 

​

RESOLUTION VS. PRINT QUALITY

Files for general printing, both offset and digital, must be 300 dpi. Anything less may compromise the quality of your print job. Files for wide-format inkjet can be from 180 - 300 dpi. This range works fine and produces the same end result. Adding image files from the web to your 300 dpi layout will usually result in poor quality. Remember, web files are 72 dpi and forcing them up to 300 degrades their quality significantly. You probably won't like the outcome.

​

WIDE FORMAT PRINTING

All the above tips apply here. In addition, be sure to include crop marks. This is especially important when there is a white background. Our standard matte and semi-gloss papers will support sizes up to 36" x whatever length.

​