Artwork Guidelines Creating Print Ready Artwork

At www.printbuyingdirect.co.uk we understand that our online templates are not always suitable for every piece of print. But that's no reason why you shouldn't be able to take advantage of short or long run, full colour, low cost printing with www.printbuyingdirect.co.uk. So we have made it easy to use your own artwork.

IMPORTANT - The prices on our web site are for "print ready" artwork only. If our design team have to adjust your file in any way (e.g. resize, rotate, adjust colour, make changes), there will be an artwork charge of £45 per hour.
To ensure your file is "print ready" and avoid any extra charges, please review and ensure your artwork meets the following requirements before uploading your files.

  • FILE FORMAT - We can only accept artwork as "print ready" if it is in PDF format.
    The majority of graphic manipulation tools will allow you to save or print your artwork in standard PDF format.
    There are also tools that allow you to print to a PDF file from almost any other program. Adobe Distiller is the well known commercial version that is packaged with Acrobat, but there are also free or shareware versions available. Two of the most popular are PDF995 and AcroPDF.

    Full instructions about creating PDF files suitable for professional printing can be found at http://www.pass4press.com. The site also includes instructions on configuring your applications including QuarkXPress, InDesign and Distiller.
  • RESOLUTION - Files, including any images, need to be at least 300 dpi to print clearly, otherwise images may appear fuzzy, distorted or pixellated. Most images found on the web are 72 dpi and are generally not suitable for professional printing.
  • COLOURS - Files must be CMYK for colours to print accurately. Files that are sent to us using RGB, Pantone, or spot colours will be automatically converted to CMYK which may cause some changes to your colours.

    Production printing presses, such as those used here at www.printbuyingdirect.co.uk, use different technologies than home/office printers and computer monitors. These should not be used to proof colours as they will not accurately represent what will be printed.

    If you require us to match your colours, you must send in an example of the colour to match to (even if we printed it before). However, not all colours are printable using CMYK, and if it is the case that we cannot match your colour we will inform you before printing.
  • FONTS - If we don't have the font you have used, it may be automatically substituted for an alternative font. To avoid this happening, please embed or outline all the fonts used in your document before sending us the final artwork.
  • BLEED - Bleed is used to extend an image, colour or line right to the edge of the finished printed piece. For example, if you want your business card background to be entirely blue, you must bleed the blue colour past the edge of the final size of your business card. This prevents a white line down one or more edges of your print, caused by very slight variations in printing and guillotining. Click here for examples and information about bleed.

    Please include 3mm bleed on each side of your artwork.
  • TEXT - Any text must be at least 5mm away from the edges of the finished size.
  • ARTWORK SIZE - Please refer to file dimension requirements when preparing your file.
    All products are trimmed down on all sides; therefore the file dimensions needs to be 6mm larger than the final trimmed product.
    For more details on our product sizes or to download blank template files that are correctly sized and ready for you to put your artwork into.
    The table below shows our most popular products, and the size of the artwork should be in millimeters.

Product size (after trimming)

Artwork size (file dimensions with bleed)

Business card / Appointment card (85mm x 55mm)

89mm x 59mm

1/3 A4 (DL) Promotional Card (210mm x 99mm)

213mm x 101mm

A6 Postcard (148mm x 105mm)

151mm x 107mm

A5 Flyer (210mm x 148mm)

213.4mm x 151mm

A4 Flyer (210mm x 297mm)

213mm x 300mm
  • FILE SIZE - Files can be sent to us using the FTP link on our website (max 50mb), via email (max 10mb)
  •  In your email or FTP include the name of the folder you created, the name of your files, your print requirements and your contact details. Once we have checked your artwork has uploaded correctly we will call you back to confirm the details of your order.

MAILED POSTCARDS - Our mailed postcards are sent by Royal Mail. When creating your own artwork for mailed postcards, please ensure compliancy with the Royal Mail post specifications, otherwise your artwork will be rejected. Click here for www.royalmail.com