Supplying artwork files

Click these links for software advice and suggestions. If you feel any of the content needs to be updated or amended please let us know.

Gimp is a free image editing program. All programs have good and bad points and require time and patience to get the best out of them.

If you are wanting to create you own design for print, it is important to use appropriate software. Word processing programs and photographic image editors are not ideal and there are several cheap or free (Open Source) alternatives. Affinity Publisher is good and cheap, though not without its flaws. Xara make cheap, powerful and somewhat quirky software. Canva is an online print design service with a lot of good templates and graphic content. There is a free version and a paid for version. Scribus is a free page layout program. Inkscape is a free vector graphics program.

Image search sites such as Google Images, Bing Images - These vary in quality but are sometimes good enough. Bear in mind that many high quality Internet images are commercial products with a copyright watermark on them. Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay - free to use, no watermarks

Photos from phones Phone photographs can vary a lot in quality in terms of sharpness and detail. It mainly depends on the pixel count and the size of the photo on the printed page. We will always do what we can to make images usable but that isn’t always possible. The Internet is a useful design resource for finding photographs and graphics but care must be taken in deciding what to use. Images from websites These are normally not good enough quality. Website images are usually low resolution (72dpi) to speed up their display on screens. They can sometimes be used if the printed version is to be small or if quality is not important.

Microsoft Publisher can be used for preparing artwork for short run digital colour printing of leaflets & newsletters. We accept files up to version 2010. Using Publisher 2010 and later, files can be saved as PDF files. If you prefer to supply a Publisher file, fonts should be embedded unless they are standard ones. Multiple copies of content such as business cards or labels: if multiple copies of something are required it is not necessary to do this from within the program. Just provide a single copy and let us know the total required. It is always best to supply a PDF as well as the .Pub file.

Microsoft Word Page sizes: A common occurrence is using American page sizes, such as “Letter” - 216mm x 279mm or “Legal” - 216mm x 356mm. Neither of these are in the same proportion as A4 - 210mm x 297mm so there will always be different white margins when the document is printed on A4. Multiple copies of content such as business cards or labels: if multiple copies of something are required it is not necessary to do this from within the program. Just provide a single copy and let us know the total required. It is always best to supply a PDF as well as the .docx file.

Adobe software We can open files made using Adobe InDesign or Illustrator up to versions CS6. InDesign files should be Packaged to ensure there are no missing fonts or images. If Illustrator CS files are to be supplied please supply any non-standard fonts. We do not use Adobe CC software and so we cannot open files created by these programs. In these cases it would be best to export as a print- ready PDF.

Using Photoshop as a design tool Photoshop is the industry standard software for working with photographic images. It is not designed for laying out a complete page so a few points should be noted if that is how it is being used. These notes apply to any image editor which is being used to design a whole page. 1) Bleed: If any content goes to the edge of the page anywhere, make the canvas size 2mm or 3mm larger than the final page size & set up 4 guides to define the page area. Anything that runs to the edge should go past these trim guides and up to the edge of the canvas. 2) Safe area: Text items or anything else that needs to kept intact should not be positioned closer than 3mm

from the page edge guidelines. Drawing another set of 4 guides positioned 3mm in from the page area guides will help. 3) Make sure the resolution is at least 200dpi at the required image size. 4) Files with text should not be supplied to us as PSD files. This is because fonts are not embedded and are likely to be missing when we open the PSD file. Click here for help in embedding fonts in a PDF. Best to provide us with a flattened high quality JPG image as well as the PDF file. 5) If no changes are to be made by us, the Photoshop document can just be flattened and saved as a high quality JPG file.

PDF is our preferred file format for receiving files. But please bear in mind that a PDF is essentially a wrapper for content, so any poor quality images will stay poor quality in the PDF. Bleed: If any content runs to the page edge, make sure a bleed value of 2mm or 3mm is set in the program being used. Some layout programs can produce PDF files directly by saving as a PDF or exporting as a PDF. Files can sometimes be printed to a PDF printer, and if crop marks/bleed are needed then the page size in the printer settings should be larger than the document size to allow for this. For documents where bleed is not an issue there are lots on online converting sites. Always check the PDF file with the original document. When

making PDF files, please make sure all fonts are embedded. We use software which can change PDF files in all sorts of ways, but this is really designed for last minute small changes. Larger changes can sometimes be made and sometimes not depending on the complexity of the changes. Any substantial changes to a document should really be made in the original program followed by a new PDF being made. It is recommended to not have security passwords on PDF documents in case they do need to be edited.