Prepress Artwork
Prepress refers to the preparation of artwork and layouts to ensure your files are ready for offset printing. This includes setting the correct file format, ensuring high-resolution images, using the appropriate color space, and properly sizing all elements to meet the printer's guidelines. Proper prepress preparation is essential for achieving flawless printing results.
At Ally Sourcing, we’re committed to exceptional customer service and meticulous attention to detail. Our team manually checks every file before printing, identifying and helping resolve any errors to ensure your project turns out exactly as expected—or better. To make the process even easier, we’ve created a comprehensive guide to help you complete your prepress work efficiently and achieve perfect prints every time.
Your Helpful Guide to Prepress Artwork
How to Create A Print Ready File in Different Softwares
Not all design software is created equal, and we recommend using the Adobe Suite for optimal results. InDesign is perfect for creating print-ready files for books, magazines, catalogs, posters, flyers, and more. Illustrator is our preferred software for packaging, board games, playing cards, and other print products requiring precise vector graphics. For image-based projects, we can also work with files created in Photoshop. Additionally, QuarkXPress is a great option for large-scale projects with complex editing workflows. Choosing the right software ensures your designs are perfectly formatted for production.
Prepress Artwork Checklist
That may seem like a lot of information to take in if you’re not already familiar with preparing files for printing. So, here’s a helpful “at-a-glance” checklist of the most important points to remember:
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If your document includes photographs and full-color images, have you set up the bleed correctly?
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Have you made sure to embed all fonts?
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If not using vectors, are your images resolved to at least 300 dpi?
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Have you exported in the CMYK color space?
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Have you allowed a safe zone of at least 3 mm between the important text, images, and page numbers or footnotes and the trim (cut) lines?
Bleed
During processing, slight variations may occur in printing. To allow for this, you need a “margin of error”. The “bleed zone” is the technique we use to give a degree of tolerance, so that when we cut and trim your printed pages, the results are neat and exactly as you wanted them. The bleed zone is indicated by a red dotted line in the print file. Your artwork should extend beyond the trim line (a green dotted line) to the limits of the bleed zone.
Signature
We print several pages on larger sheets, so that when the pages are cut, folded, and glued or sewn together for binding, they will be in the right order. These sheets are called “signatures”. Each signature will have pages in multiples of 4 (one sheet with a single fold makes four pages). The most common signatures, however, have 8, 16, or 32 pages depending on the size of your book. If your book has an odd number of pages not divisible by four, then you’ll need to add one or more pages to make up the signatures.
Resolution for Printing
When exporting images for printing, you’ll need to make sure that they have a resolution of at least 300 dpi so that the results are crisp, sharp, accurate, and clear. On-screen images resolve at 72 dpi, which looks fine on your laptop but would be blurred, cloudy, or “pixilated” on the printed page.
CMYK & RGB
When you’re designing your artwork and layouts on the computer, the default color space is usually RGB (Red-Green-Blue). That’s fine for screen image at 72 dpi resolution, but won’t look right once it’s been printed. Offset printing uses the CMYK (Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black) color space. So, you’ll need to convert your colors to the CMYK mode to export.
Vector Graphics
We much prefer to receive vector graphics for artwork as the precision and tolerance even after resizing are so much better than with raster graphics. Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw are both excellent software for working with vectors and we recommend them. So, if you can create your images and export them as vectors, you’ll make your printer very happy and also get a vastly superior result on the page.
Page Numbers
While not all books need to have numbered pages, the positioning and style of the numbers is a design choice and most software allows you to set up pagination in a few clicks. Check that you’ve numbered the pages correctly and that the position and style are consistent throughout
HERE TO HELP
If you have any questions or need assistance, don’t hesitate to reach out. Our prepress experts are ready to guide you through the process. Once you’ve prepared your files, feel free to send them our way—we’ll review them carefully. If we spot any issues, we’ll notify you right away and assist in resolving them. Our goal is to make your experience seamless and ensure you achieve the best possible results. We’re here to support you every step of the way!
Book Spine
A book’s spine is the outer area of the cover forming a strip between the front and back. The spine’s size is decided by the number of pages, paper thickness, and binding style. So, the spine of a paperback book is equal to the sum of the pages and the covers, a hardback spine must also account for the casing, and a saddle stitched book doesn’t have a spine at all. Remember to include relevant information on the spine, such as the title, author’s name, publisher, and logo.
