How to prepare print-ready artwork: an 8-point checklist

Artwork that looks perfect on screen comes off the press wrong more often than it should. Screens work with light, print works with ink, and in between there are a few technical rules every file has to follow. We've collected them in a list you can share with your own customers, too.

1. Final size, at actual scale

Artwork is made at the product's final size, not “roughly the same”. A 90×50 mm business card is a 90×50 mm document at 1:1 scale. Large banners can be prepared at reduced scale, but only if the print shop explicitly asks for it.

2. Bleed

Anything that runs to the edge of the product — backgrounds, photos, color bands — has to extend past the trim line, usually by 2–3 mm on each side. The blade never cuts exactly to the millimeter, and without bleed you get a thin white line along the edge.

3. Safe zone

Text, logos and phone numbers sit at least 3–5 mm inside the trim line. For the same reason: a small cutting tolerance shouldn't eat a letter.

4. Image resolution

Photos need around 300 dpi at the size they're printed. An image taken from a website is usually 72 dpi and will come out blurry. For large format, viewed from a distance, 100–150 dpi is usually enough.

5. CMYK colors, not RGB

Printing uses four inks: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Very bright screen colors, especially greens and electric blues, have no exact CMYK equivalent. Convert the file beforehand and check the difference is acceptable, so there are no surprises on delivery.

6. Fonts embedded or outlined

If the print shop doesn't have your font, the text will be swapped for another one. The fix: embed the fonts in the PDF or convert them to outlines before exporting.

7. Lines that aren't too thin

Lines thinner than about 0.25 pt can disappear in print. The same goes for very small reversed text — white on a dark background.

8. Export to a print PDF

The safest format is a print PDF (for example PDF/X) with bleed included. For die-cut labels, the cut line goes on a separate layer, in a clearly named spot color.

1. 01Final size, at 1:1 scale
2. 022–3 mm bleed on every side
3. 03Text 3–5 mm inside the edge
4. 04Images at ~300 dpi
5. 05CMYK colors
6. 06Fonts embedded or outlined
7. 07Lines at least 0.25 pt
8. 08Print PDF with bleed

On TGPRINT, some of these checks run automatically the moment a customer uploads a file: resolution, size and bleed. Problem files are stopped before they reach production.