Designing your print files: the complete Welye guide

Every technical rule, the manufacturing tolerances of the trade and straight answers to the questions we are asked most. If in doubt, send us your file — we check it free of charge before anything goes on press.

1. Bleed and safe area

Your job is trimmed by a guillotine through a stack of paper, and the blade can drift by around one millimetre. Two rules avoid any unpleasant surprise:

• ✓Bleed: 3 mm minimum — anything touching the edge (background colour, photo) must extend 3 mm beyond the finished size. Large format and rigid substrates: 5 mm.
• ✓Safe area: 5 mm — text, logos and anything that matters stay at least 5 mm inside the trim edge (3 mm on business cards).

A file without bleed can show a white sliver along the trim: it is the number-one cause of disappointment on delivery — and it takes two minutes to fix in your design software.

2. Colour: CMYK required, your screen is not a contract

Our presses print in CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black). A screen displays in RGB (light): some colours that look vivid on screen — neon greens, electric blues, saturated oranges — do not exist in ink and come out duller.

• ✓Work in (or export to) CMYK; recommended profile: Coated FOGRA39 (or PSO Coated v3).
• ✓A critical shade (a brand colour)? Give us its Pantone© reference on the quote — we tune the conversion as closely as possible, or print a spot colour where the product allows it.
• ✓On-screen previews and desktop-printer proofs are not contractual: only the CMYK file and the proof count. Paper matters too — a coated stock lifts the colours, an uncoated or textured stock absorbs them slightly.

3. Resolution: 300 dpi (and the large-format exception)

The rule: 300 dpi at final size for anything read up close (cards, flyers, brochures, labels). An image that looks sharp on screen can be pixelated in print: a screen shows about 72 dpi, paper asks for four times more.

Large format (banners, panels, roll-ups): 100 to 150 dpi at full scale is enough — a banner is read from several metres away. Working at 1/10 scale? Multiply the resolution by 10 (e.g. 1,200 dpi at 1/10 = 120 dpi at full size).

Enlarging a small image in your software adds no detail: always start from the largest source file you have.

4. Fonts: outlined or embedded

If we do not have your font, the file opens with a substitute — and the whole layout shifts. Two ways to avoid it:

• ✓Convert text to outlines before export (Illustrator: Type → Create Outlines; InDesign embeds fonts automatically on PDF export).
• ✓Or export a PDF with embedded fonts (the default behaviour of "press quality" presets).

Recommended minimum size: 6 pt solid, 8 pt for white text reversed out of a colour background, more on textile, banner material and textured substrates.

5. The right file format: PDF above all

• ✓High-quality PDF (ideally PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-4): the reference format — it locks down layout, fonts and colours.
• ✓Bleed included in the PDF; crop marks are fine but not required (the finished size is defined by the quote).
• ✓One page per side, in reading order — no imposed spreads; imposition is our job.
• ✓JPEG/TIFF/PNG accepted for large format (300 dpi, CMYK preferred). AI/INDD/PSD: send the PDF export instead — open files require a prepress quote.
• ✓Never a password-protected PDF, and flatten complex transparency if your software offers it.
• ✓Check the front/back orientation (reading direction, head-to-head for a tent card or a product that gets flipped): it is not checked on our side — the file is imposed exactly as supplied.

6. Blacks: text, solids and total ink limit

• ✓Black text and rules: 100 % K only (C0 M0 Y0 K100). A four-colour black on fine text creates registration fringing.
• ✓Large black solids: rich black — for example C40 M30 Y30 K100 — for a deep, even black.
• ✓Total ink coverage ≤ 300 % (C+M+Y+K): beyond that the paper saturates, dries badly and risks set-off.

7. Overprint: the invisible trap

Overprint makes an object print on top of the background instead of knocking it out. Set by mistake it is invisible on screen but very real in print: the classic case is a white object set to overprint… which disappears entirely from the printed job.

• ✓Check with your software's overprint preview (Acrobat / InDesign / Illustrator: View → Overprint Preview).
• ✓Never leave a white object set to overprint. The one useful exception: small black text, often overprinted automatically — that is intended and harmless.

8. Hairlines, frames and borders

• ✓Minimum line weight: 0.25 pt solid, 0.5 pt reversed out in white or in four colours.
• ✓Avoid thin frames close to the trim edge: with the trim tolerance (±1 mm), a frame sitting 2 mm from the edge will unavoidably look off-centre. If a frame is essential, keep it at least 5 mm in.

9. Leaflets and folded documents

• ✓Tucked-in panel: 2 mm shorter than the other panels (roll fold), otherwise it buckles.
• ✓State the folding direction clearly (roll, concertina, cross fold) and the order of the panels — a diagram, or our templates on request.
• ✓On heavy stocks (≥ 170 gsm) the fold is creased beforehand so it does not crack — slight fibre cracking on dark solids along the fold remains normal.

10. Brochures and catalogues

• ✓PDF as single pages, in reading order (cover included) — no spreads, no imposition.
• ✓Saddle stitching: page count a multiple of 4. Perfect binding: roughly 40 pages minimum (depending on stock) for a usable spine.
• ✓Perfect binding: allow for the spine (its width depends on page count and paper — we confirm it on the quote) and avoid elements straddling the edge of the spine.
• ✓Elements crossing a double-page spread: offset them slightly on either side of the centre fold — the binding "eats" 2 to 4 mm at the centre.

11. Foiling, spot UV, die-cutting: the shape file

For any localised finish (hot foil stamping, raised spot UV, embossing, die-cutting), supply one extra file:

• ✓100 % vector, as a 100 % black solid (or a named spot colour), exactly aligned over the artwork, in a separate PDF or layer.
• ✓Minimum thickness for foiled/varnished elements: 0.5 pt — finer detail will not register.
• ✓Die-cutting: the cut path in vector form, plus 3 mm of bleed around the path.

12. Labels, stickers and vinyl

• ✓Vector cut shape (round, oval, bespoke), 2 mm bleed around the cut, text kept 2 mm inside.
• ✓Outdoor use, food contact or an unusual surface (glass, chilled bottles…): say so on the quote — the material and lamination depend on it.
• ✓Printing on clear or metallic substrates: a white underbase layer may be needed — we prepare it with you.

13. Large format: banners, panels, roll-ups

• ✓File at full scale (or 1/10 with the resolution multiplied accordingly), 100–150 dpi at real size.
• ✓Banners with eyelets or pole pockets: keep text and logos 5 cm from the edges; welding and hem allowances are handled by us.
• ✓Standard roll-up 85 × 200 cm: add about 10 cm at the foot (the area rolled inside the mechanism, never visible) — templates available on request.

14. Manufacturing tolerances: what is normal

Printing is an industrial process applied to a living material (paper). The tolerances below are standard printing-trade practice; they apply to everything we produce and do not constitute defects:

• ✓Trimming and folding: ± 1 mm (hence bleed and safe area).
• ✓Colour: slight variation is possible between two print runs, between different papers, and against your screen (uncalibrated and non-contractual). The proof and the CMYK file are the reference.
• ✓Quantities: ± 5 % — press make-ready can produce a slight over- or under-run, as is customary throughout the trade.
• ✓Finishing: slight fibre cracking possible at the fold on dark solids; front-to-back registration tolerance of around a millimetre.

15. Who is responsible for what? The role of the proof

Our commitment is simple and written down. What we check free of charge on every file:

• ✓The file's dimensions against the order (size, page count, panels).
• ✓Bleed and safe area — corrected where possible, otherwise we warn you.
• ✓Image resolution and font embedding.
• ✓That the finishes ordered are workable (foil/varnish/cut file present, usable thicknesses).

What we do not check — these points remain your responsibility and cannot give rise to compensation:

• ✗The colour mode and the colour result you expect (automatic RGB/Pantone© → CMYK conversion, see section 2).
• ✗Overprint settings contained in the file (see section 7) and elements finer than the minimums (see section 8).
• ✗The front/back orientation and the reading direction of the finished product.
• ✗The content: spelling, contact details, legal notices, image rights.

• ✓A proof is emailed on request — simply say so when you order. Without a request for a proof, production starts from the file supplied, exactly as it is. Whatever is approved (file or proof) is what gets printed: read it through carefully, content as well as form.
• ✓Something wrong on delivery? Write to us within 72 h with photos (parcel, product, defect): we investigate and find a solution — a reprint if the fault is ours.

The contractual detail is set out in our terms and conditions of sale.

16. How to send us your files

• ✓Once you order, you receive a secure upload link — up to 10 MB per file by email, more via the link.
• ✓Name your files clearly: product_front.pdf, product_back.pdf, brochure_24pp.pdf…
• ✓No print-ready file? Our prepress studio creates your document or brings it up to standard, quoted separately.