Submission for the expert

Your screen uses three colors of light to define all other colors, this is the RGB (Red Green Blue) color model. However, printers do not work with light, but with ink or toner, and use the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key/black) color model.

Many images that come from the internet are made using RGB, and therefore do not match the requirements of the printer. If you upload an RGB file, there is a chance that the colors of the printed result will look less vivid than those on your screen. Additionally, very bright and intense colors that can be made with RGB cannot be achieved with CMYK.

To minimize the color differences between your file and our prints, it is important that the file uses CMYK colors. When your document is made using CMYK, the colors are most accurate. However, the colors you see on your screen are not a guarantee for the color that is printed. At Print&Bind we calibrate our printers every day, so the colors are transferred from screen to paper as well as possible.

Transfer to CMYK
If your file has already been made, you can choose to convert RGB colors to CMYK colors. You do this by exporting your file to PDF/X-1a:2001 with the profile 'Fogra39L' (if this is unavailable then choose Coated Fogra39. This profile allows for the best possible transfer from RGB to CMYK. If you have not made your file yet, you can choose to use the CMYK profile before you start designing.

It is not necessary to deliver a file with bleed and crop marks, but for a borderless file with a critical design, we do recommend it. Deliver the document with at least 3 mm bleed. For more information on how to add bleed to your documents with InDesign or Illustrator, you can check our useful tips. We advise against adding crop marks without bleed. When you upload a file without bleed, we will increase the size of the document with 1mm to create our own 'bleed' before printing.

It is possible that your file contains images or objects that are partially transparent, we call these transparencies. These transparencies are generally not visible in your document, but printers are unable to process these.

Check the explanation including screenshots.

If you have designed a font yourself or the font you used is not a standard font, there is a risk that a different font was used when printing. You can check this after uploading your document, see the preview and/or the notification about missing fonts.

On our page with useful tips we have explanations on how to this for Word, Word on a mac, InDesign, and Illustrator.

Do you want to print a poster? Then consider saving your text as outlines. In Illustrator or in InDesign, you can do this by going to the menu and choosing 'Text' > 'Create outlines'. Make sure to save this file under a different name, as the text can't be changed anymore after creating outlines.

The attractiveness of a book depends heavily on the cover. When you choose the adhesive binding method, you can either upload loose pages for the cover or a spread document. With the first option, the spine will remain white, while with the latter you can include a design for on the spine.

For more explanation click here.

Black in your document is not always the same black as our printers will print. Standard black in the CMYK color palette has the values C0 M0 Y0 K100, but the printers will generally print this as dark grey. To make a larger area black, the values C70 M50 Y30 K100 for designer black are more suitable. For lines or text, we do recommend using the standard black.

To have a magazine or brochure printed, it is always important that the number of pages is a multiple of 4, so that it can be printed beautifully on both sides and no white pages end up in your brochure. In case the number of pages of the file uploaded by you is not divisible by 4, we will supplement the file with white pages (also visible in the preview). Spreads delivery is no problem for us and we can process them well. Our system automatically puts the pages in the correct order (also known as imposition). In the case of magazines, too, we scale the file a fraction (1mm) for borderless designs and cut it nicely to the desired format. If you don't want scaling, please provide your document with crop marks and bleed.

Be careful with designs that span two consecutive pages. There is a good chance that the design will not fit together neatly due to paper shifting. It is best to avoid using these types of designs as much as possible, or to accept that a small shift can occur. When folding documents, any shifting should also be taken into account.

Our system orders the pages of your document automatically. When you upload spreads, this order will longer be right. Are you unsure whether the loose pages you upload will be printed in the right order? In the order form, you can find a preview that shows you exactly how the end result will look!

We understand that many people like to design a framework around their documents. However, this is often not a very good choice for documents that need to be printed. With frames, there is a high chance that the edges do not become fully proportional and that the prints will look sloppy.

Below we provide a step-by-step plan for setting up contour cutting lines in Adobe Illustrator or InDesign. With these cutting lines you can decide the shape in which we will cut your prints!

Click here for an extensive explanation including screenshots.