How to Prepare a File for Print: The Complete Checklist

Print preparation9 min read · Updated: 03.11.2026

Most problems at the print house aren't caused by poor design but by technical details: no bleed, text right up against the edge, a 72 DPI photo pulled from the web, or black text built from four colours. This guide takes you step by step through everything a prepress designer checks before a file goes to press. You'll start with dimensions and bleed, move on to colour, resolution, fonts and black, and finish with PDF export and a final check of the finished file. At the end you'll find a checklist to tick off.

Key print file settings at a glance

The values below are a safe standard for most digital, litho and large-format printers. If your printer publishes its own specification, that always takes priority, as it depends on their presses, stock and finishing methods.

Trimmed size, bleed size and bleed – how much to add?

The trimmed size is the final size of the print after cutting – for example, A5 is 148 × 210 mm and a standard UK business card is 85 × 55 mm (90 × 50 mm in much of continental Europe). The bleed size is the trimmed size plus bleed, the extra background that extends beyond the trim line. With a 3 mm bleed, an A5 flyer measures 154 × 216 mm in the file, an 85 × 55 mm business card 91 × 61 mm, and a 90 × 50 mm card 96 × 56 mm.

Bleed is needed because the guillotine never cuts in exactly the same place on every sheet. If the background stops precisely at the trim line, even the slightest shift will leave a white sliver along the edge. That's why every background, photo and element that touches the edge must extend across the full width of the bleed.

In large format, the rules depend on the finishing. A banner with eyelets or a pole pocket usually needs a hem allowance or a larger margin, and a roll-up often requires extra space at the bottom that disappears into the base cassette. In these cases, always download a template or specification from the printer.

• Set up the document at the trimmed size from the outset and define the bleed in your software's settings.
• Extend backgrounds and photos right to the outer edge of the bleed.
• Avoid placing borders tight to the edge – they'll look uneven once trimmed.

Safe area – how far from the edge should text sit?

The safe area is a strip inside the trimmed size where no important content should appear. For flyers, business cards and posters, allow at least 3–5 mm from the trim line, and proportionally more on larger formats. Always keep text, logos, phone numbers and QR codes inside this area.

On folded products, such as an A4 sheet folded to DL or a menu, also leave clearance from the crease lines so text doesn't break across the fold. On banners, the margin must allow for eyelets and pole pockets, and on a roll-up for the bottom section hidden by the cassette and the top rail. The simplest approach is to set guides at the margin before you start designing.

CMYK or RGB – how should you set up colour for print?

Presses print with CMYK inks, while screens display colour in RGB, which has a wider gamut. If you send an RGB file, the printer or RIP will convert it automatically, and vivid greens, blues and purples can turn noticeably dull. It's better to do the conversion yourself so you can see straight away how the colour will look.

Work in the CMYK profile specified by your printer. Coated stock often uses profiles from the FOGRA family (e.g. ISO Coated), uncoated stock uses uncoated profiles, and large-format printers may have their own recommendations. Keep an eye on total ink coverage too: on coated stock the safe limit is usually around 300%, and lower on uncoated.

Convert brand colours defined in Pantone to CMYK using a swatch book, unless the job is being printed with a spot colour. Remember that your monitor isn't a reliable reference – for critical colours, ask for a hard proof.

What resolution do you need for print?

For flyers, business cards, posters and menus, photos should be 300 DPI at 1:1 scale, i.e. at their final printed size. Images from the web are usually 72 DPI and sized for the screen, so on paper they'll look blurry or pixelated. Artificially increasing the DPI in software doesn't add detail – it simply resamples the existing pixels.

Large format needs a lower resolution, because a banner or roll-up is viewed from several metres away. The usual figure is 100–150 DPI at 1:1 scale, and even less for banners seen from a distance. If you're preparing a file at 1:10 scale, the resolution must be ten times higher: 1000 DPI in the file gives 100 DPI in print.

Logos, text and simple shapes are best left as vectors – they scale without any loss of quality. At plakaty.shop (wielkareklama.eu studio), you receive PDF files already set at the trimmed size with a 3 mm bleed and a safe area, and roll-ups and banners at 1:10 scale, in line with standard large-format practice.

Fonts, fine lines and black – what to watch out for

Convert fonts to outlines or embed them in the PDF. If the printer doesn't have your typeface, the software will substitute another and your layout will fall apart. The minimum safe text size is 6 pt, though 7–8 pt is better for legibility. Make white text on a dark, multi-colour background slightly larger and bolder, as fine serifs can fill in with ink.

Lines thinner than 0.25 pt (about 0.1 mm) may disappear in print or print unevenly. This also applies to borders, underlines and fine details in logos.

Use black deliberately. Set small text and fine lines in 100% K only, because a four-colour black will show coloured fringes at the slightest misregistration. Make large black backgrounds in rich black, e.g. C50 M40 Y40 K100, so they don't look grey. Never use Registration colour (100/100/100/100) – 400% ink coverage risks smudging and set-off.

• Text and lines: black at 100% K.
• Large black areas: rich black, e.g. C50 M40 Y40 K100.
• Never use: Registration colour, i.e. 100% of every ink.
• Only set overprint on purpose – most often for black text.

Exporting a PDF for print – which settings?

The safest standards are PDF/X-1a (flattens transparency, everything in CMYK) and PDF/X-4 (preserves transparency and layers). Which one to choose depends on the printer – if you have no guidelines, PDF/X-1a works almost everywhere. In the export dialogue, turn on bleed at the value set in your document.

Only add crop marks if the printer asks for them – many digital printers want a clean file with bleed. Don't password-protect the PDF, and remove comments and hidden layers. For double-sided products, save the pages in order: page one is the front, page two the back.

• Standard: PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-4.
• Bleed: switched on and matching the document (e.g. 3 mm).
• Image compression: never below the required resolution.
• One product = one file, with pages in the correct order.

How to check your file before sending it to the printer

Open the finished PDF in software with preflight or output preview and check the page size, bleed, colour space and font embedding. Separations preview will show whether black text sits only in the K channel and whether there's excessive ink coverage anywhere. Zoom photos to 100–200% to spot any pixelation.

Finally, print the design on an ordinary desktop printer at 1:1 scale – you'll see immediately whether text is too small or elements are too close to the edge. Slowly reread every word, phone number, address, price and date, ideally with a second person. The printer prints exactly what it receives, and a typo in a phone number can't be fixed once the run is printed.