ARTWORK SET-UP GUIDE

How to prepare your artwork for print

Cutter guides, bleed, images, fonts, colour, file formats — everything in one guide.

Sharp print starts with well-prepared artwork. This guide walks the full workflow — from setting up your folder template to running the pre-submit checklist before you hit send. Use the navigation below to jump to a section.

Folder templates Bleed & safe area Images & resolution Fonts Colour File formats Proofing Checklist
[ AT A GLANCE ]
3 mm
BLEED
Extend backgrounds beyond the cut line.
6 mm
SAFE AREA
Keep text & key content inside this margin.
300 dpi
RESOLUTION
Minimum for all placed images.
CMYK
COLOUR MODE
Convert from RGB before export.
[ FOLDER TEMPLATES & CUTTER GUIDES ]

Start from a template, or draw your own

Already using one of our folder templates? Follow the read-me in the download — it walks you through everything below. Designing from scratch? Here's how to set up your own cutter guide.

A finished folder template — the magenta dashed line is the cutter guide on its own named layer.
A finished folder template — the magenta dashed line is the cutter guide on its own named layer.
STEP 01
Adobe Illustrator pen tool tracing a folder die-line as a magenta 1-point stroke.

Draw the cut outline

A single 1pt stroke tracing the exact shape of the finished folder, including every flap and pocket edge.

STEP 02
Illustrator Color panel showing a Cutter spot colour set to 100% magenta.

Create a "cutter" spot colour

Add a new spot colour named cutter. Use a visible hue — magenta, red or green — so it stands out against artwork.

STEP 03
Illustrator Properties panel with the Cutter spot colour applied to the stroke, fill set to none, alongside a dedicated Cutter layer.

Apply to the outline stroke

Assign the cutter spot to your stroke only — not the fill, not any other element. Keep it on its own layer if possible.

[ BLEED, SAFE AREA & TRIM MARKS ]

Three concentric zones

Get all three right and the press delivers the folder exactly as you designed it.

BLEED · 3mm SAFE AREA · 6mm TRIM LINE
Bleed — 3 mm outside
Extend backgrounds, images and solid colours past the trim line. Without it, slight cut drift can leave a white sliver on one edge.
Trim line — exact size
The line our cutter follows. Crop marks (corner ticks outside the bleed) show where the blade lands. This is the finished folder edge.
Safe area — 6 mm inside
Keep text, logos and anything you can't afford to lose inside this margin. Content too close to the trim risks being clipped.

Folder-specific considerations

Spine width
Capacity folders need an accurate spine measurement. If artwork wraps across the spine, match the spine width to the capacity you ordered.
Inside & outside artwork
Folders have up to four printable areas: outside front, outside back, inside left and inside right. Supply each clearly labelled.
Pocket positioning
Avoid critical text or logos where pockets sit — these areas are partially obscured once the folder is assembled.
[ IMAGES & RESOLUTION ]

Enough pixels for the print size

Print quality comes down to one thing — how many pixels your image contains relative to the size it's printed at.

The same photo printed at 72ppi (visibly pixelated, left) and 300ppi (sharp, right) at the same physical size.
The same image at 72ppi (left) and 300ppi (right), printed at the same physical size — only the pixel count differs.
THE SIMPLE RULE
Pixel width ÷ 300 = max sharp print width (inches)
Multiply inches × 2.54 for centimetres. A 3,000px-wide image prints sharply up to 10 inches (~25.4 cm). Larger, and pixels start to show.
300 ppi
Print target
The resolution every placed image needs, measured at the final print size. Hit this and detail stays crisp.
72 ppi
Screen default
What web images and most camera exports land at. Fine for screens; prints pixelated unless scaled down a lot.
Resolution is measured at the print size, not the original size.
A 4000px-wide photo might look like plenty — but placed on a full A3 spread, those pixels spread thin. What matters is the ppi once the image sits at the size it'll print.

Web images usually aren't print-ready

Website images are saved small to keep pages fast — often a few hundred pixels wide. PPI is just metadata; pixel dimensions are what matter. A small web image won't gain quality saved at 300 PPI — the pixels aren't there. Source the original, use it smaller, or replace it.

Phone & camera photos usually do work

Modern phone and camera photos have large pixel dimensions even when tagged 72 PPI. A typical smartphone photo is ~4,000 × 3,000px — sharp up to about 33 cm × 25 cm. Pixel count is what counts, not the PPI tag.

Check an image's max print size in Photoshop

A three-click trick that tells you the maximum size an image can print without pixelating.

Two Photoshop Image Size dialogs side by side — Resample on at 72ppi (left) and Resample off at 300ppi (right), revealing the maximum sharp print dimensions.
Before (left) and after (right) unticking Resample and setting Resolution to 300 — Photoshop reveals the document size at print quality.
01
Open Image Size

Width, Height and Resolution are shown — locked together.

Image › Image Size
02
Turn off resampling

Locks the pixel count — no pixels added or removed — so the three values rebalance.

Uncheck: Resample
03
Set Resolution to 300

The Width and Height shown are your maximum safe print dimensions.

Resolution: 300 px/in

Don't have Photoshop? Free alternatives that do the same job: Photopea (browser-based, mirrors Photoshop) and GIMP (free desktop).

Worked example

A phone photo might read 72ppi at 1.42m wide — unprintable at that size. Run the three steps and Photoshop shows the same pixels print sharp at roughly 34 cm × 25 cm at 300ppi. Big enough for most folder jobs.

Photoshop Image Size dialog showing a document size of 13cm by 9cm at 300ppi, with width, height and resolution circled.
[ FONTS ]

Make sure we have your fonts

If we don't have a font you've used, our software will flag an error or silently substitute another typeface. Three ways to guarantee the fonts you designed with are the fonts we print.

InDesign's File menu with Package highlighted, and a Finder window showing a Document Fonts folder bundled with the source files.

Package with artwork

Bundle your typeface files with your artwork. Adobe's one-click tool collects fonts, images and the document into one folder.

File › Package
Illustrator · InDesign
Acrobat Document Properties dialog Fonts tab listing four fonts each marked as Embedded Subset.

Embed in a PDF

Modern Adobe exports embed fonts automatically. Verify in Adobe Reader — every font should read "Embedded" or "Embedded Subset".

File › Properties › Fonts
Adobe Reader (to verify)
InDesign's Type menu with Create Outlines highlighted, and the resulting heading rendered as outlined vector paths.

Outline to shapes

Convert text to vector paths so the font is baked in. Text is no longer editable — keep a backup of the original first.

Type › Create Outlines
Illustrator · InDesign
Some fonts can't be embedded or outlined.
Certain typeface licences block PDF embedding or outline conversion. If Adobe throws a permissions error, try a different method — or give us a call and we'll work around it.
[ COLOUR: CMYK, NOT RGB ]

Convert to CMYK before you send

Screens and presses don't speak the same colour language. Convert artwork and embedded images to CMYK before sending — what you see in-app should match what comes off the press.

CMYK
Print target
Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (black) — the four inks our presses lay down. Save every file in this mode before it reaches us.
RGB
Screen default
Red, Green and Blue light — what monitors and cameras default to. Fine for screens; prints with shifted, flatter colours unless converted.
RGB has more colours than CMYK can physically print.
Screens emit coloured light; paper reflects it. Some of the brightest neon RGB greens and blues simply can't exist in ink. Converting before export means you see the honest version in your design tool — not a screen-only illusion.
See it in colour — on screen vs on the press

Read down each column: RGB shifts noticeably from screen to print (gamut clipping); CMYK stays close to its preview, because the preview already shows what the press can reproduce.

ON SCREEN
WHEN PRINTED
RGB
Vivid RGB colour swatches as they appear on a backlit screen.
The RGB swatches dulled after the press clipped them to the CMYK gamut.
CMYK
The same swatches shown muted — the CMYK preview of what the press can reproduce.
CMYK printed swatches — virtually identical to the CMYK on-screen preview.

Converting to CMYK

One menu click in each of the big three Adobe apps. Do this before you export the final file.

Illustrator .ai

Set the whole document to CMYK. All artwork re-maps at once.

File › Document Color Mode › CMYK
Photoshop .psd

Change the image mode to CMYK. Photoshop converts pixel by pixel.

Image › Mode › CMYK Color
InDesign .indd

Convert at export time. Press Quality preset with Convert to Destination (Preserve Numbers).

Export › PDF › Press Quality

For European print jobs, set FOGRA 39 as your destination colour profile — it's the standard our presses are calibrated to.

Affinity Designer / Publisher

Choose a CMYK profile, click OK, then save or export as PDF.

File › Document Setup › Colour › CMYK/8
Canva

RGB-only by default — no in-app CMYK switch. Download as PDF Print and convert in Acrobat, or send us the Canva PDF and we'll convert it. Printed colours may differ from on-screen.

Need an exact brand colour? Use a spot colour.
Some brand colours sit outside the CMYK gamut — they can't be mixed from four inks. Specify a Pantone or other spot colour on its own separate layer and we'll print it as an extra ink. Call us before ordering if spot colours are involved.
[ FILE FORMATS ]

What to send us

We'll print from any of these. PDF at 300dpi is the smoothest path — everything else works but may need a follow-up call.

PREFERRED
PDF

300dpi, correct print size, fonts embedded.

InDesign .indd

Package links + fonts when supplying.

Illustrator .ai

Outline fonts or include typeface files.

Photoshop .psd

Flatten or keep layers — both fine.

TIFF .tif

Raster-only — good for photo-led jobs.

JPEG .jpg

High-quality export, minimal compression.

Avoid Microsoft Office files.
Word, PowerPoint and Publisher files often shift fonts, resolution and layout when opened on a different machine. Export to PDF before sending.
[ PROOFING ]

Every order gets a RIP'd proof

When we process your files we send a RIP'd proof (a Raster Image Processor output PDF) to check before printing. This confirms your design has processed correctly through our press workflow.

Review it carefully — once you've approved it, we begin printing and we cannot be held responsible for errors noticed afterwards.

Check before you approve

The proof is your last chance to catch spelling, layout, colour and image issues. Take your time — approval is final.

[ PRE-SUBMIT CHECKLIST ]

Ten things to tick off

Run through these before sending us your file.

Proofread
Final check for spelling, grammar, layout and design.
File format
Press-ready 300dpi PDF where possible.
Images
Every image at 300dpi at its actual print size.
Fonts
Embedded, supplied alongside, or converted to outlines.
Application files
Include all linked fonts and images.
Colour
Artwork and all images converted to CMYK.
Bleed and marks
3 mm bleed and trim/crop marks included.
Multi-page PDFs
Supplied as single pages, not spreads.
Spot colours
Set up correctly if used.
Cutter guides
Set as a spot colour with overprint, if you've drawn your own.

Ready to send
your artwork?

Run through the checklist, then email our studio team or give us a call. We'll review the file before it heads to press — it's free, and the easiest way to avoid surprises at print stage.

Call 023 8087 8030 Email our team