Artwork

Add 3mm of bleed to every edge. Bleed is artwork that runs past the finished size and gets trimmed away, so colours reach the edge with no white slivers. A trim can wander by up to 2mm, which is exactly what the bleed absorbs.

Set your document to the finished size and add the bleed in your software's bleed settings. Do not make the page itself bigger.

Keep anything that matters — text, logos, faces — at least 3mm inside the trim. Backgrounds can run out into the bleed; content should not. Bound work needs a wider margin on the binding edge, which is under Booklets below.

Measure at the size the image will print, not on screen. Enlarging a small image does not add detail back.

Change the document colour mode before you export. In Illustrator or InDesign that is File › Document Color Mode › CMYK; in Photoshop it is Image › Mode › CMYK Color. Check your brightest colours afterwards — neons and vivid blues shift the most.

If you send RGB we convert it, but your proof may come back darker than your screen.

The press prints CMYK, not Pantone spot colours. Convert them first with a Pantone-to-CMYK converter and keep the CMYK values as your reference. Expect a slight difference; your proof shows the CMYK result.

Give anything important at least 11% ink coverage — lighter tints print faint or patchy — and keep at least 25% contrast between text or graphics and what sits behind them.

8pt. Avoid hairline and very light weights at that size — they thin out further on press.

No, they are added in production. Set the trim box to the finished size and include 3mm of bleed on every edge. If crop marks do show up on your proof, it usually means the trim box was never set.

Embed, preferably: export with the PDF/X-1a:2001 preset and fonts are embedded for you. In Microsoft Office it is Options › Save › Embed fonts in the file.

Outline: in Illustrator or InDesign select the text and choose Type › Create Outlines. In Photoshop, right-click the type layer and choose Rasterize Type. Keep an editable copy — outlined text cannot be edited again.

Yes. Material promoting a candidate or party must carry an imprint naming the printer, the promoter, and anyone it is published on behalf of. Use [printer name and address — to confirm] as the printer, and see the Electoral Commission's guidance for the rest.

There is no design service. Small fixes are usually possible — a spelling correction, nudging an element back inside the safe area — but artwork cannot be redesigned, and we do not proofread what you send.

The PDF/X-1a:2001 preset. It embeds fonts, flattens transparency and keeps colour in CMYK — the three things most often wrong in a file that comes back rejected.

Flatten before you send. Exporting to PDF/X-1a:2001 does it, or save a 300dpi JPEG.

Overprint is not needed here, so turn it off: in Illustrator or InDesign open Window › Output › Attributes, untick Overprint Fill and Overprint Stroke, then export.

1. Set the design to the finished size. Do not add the bleed to the canvas.
2. Share › Download, then choose PDF Print.
3. Tick Flatten PDF, and pick the CMYK colour profile if your plan offers it.
4. You do not need crop marks and bleed, or notes.

In Acrobat use Tools › Combine Files, add your files, put them in print order and save. Without Acrobat, Adobe's free online merge tool does the same job.

Usually not — they are often a screen effect. Open the PDF in Acrobat and zoom in and out: if the lines move or vanish they are display artefacts. You can also turn off Edit › Preferences › Page Display › Smooth Line Art and Smooth Images. If a line stays put, it is in the artwork.

3mm of bleed, and a safe zone of 3mm from the trim, 9mm on the binding edge, so the punched holes and the wire never cover anything you meant to be read.

3mm of bleed, and a safe zone of 3mm from the trim, 10mm on the spine side, so nothing disappears into the binding when the spine is glued.

Count every printed side, including the four cover pages — front, inside front, inside back, back. An outer cover, an inside cover spread and 28 inner pages is a 32-page booklet.

• One PDF, pages in print order.
• The page count is every printed side, including the four cover pages.
• Spine text no smaller than 8pt.

Ask Papur for your booklet's spine width — it depends on the page count and the paper — and lay the cover out as one spread: back cover, spine, front cover. In Canva, place the spine as a guide layer and hide it before exporting.

Long edge: bound on the longest side, so portrait pages turn like a book. Short edge: bound on the shortest side, so landscape pages flip up like a notepad.

Your file is checked as it arrives — pdf version, bleed, resolution, colour space, fonts — and anything that would stop the press is flagged there and then. You then get a digital proof to check and approve.

Artwork comes after payment, so nothing waits on a file: your price is locked the moment you accept the quote.

Download it and look at it at a few zoom levels:

• Spelling, numbers, phone numbers and web addresses
• Orientation, page order and page numbers
• Nothing important sitting near an edge
• No stray boxes, lines or missing text
• Colours as you expect them in CMYK

Read any warnings. Approving is the last chance to catch an error before it is printed 5,000 times.

Anything that is not already CMYK is converted for print, and CMYK has a smaller range than a screen, so some colours land darker or less vivid. Supplying CMYK is the way to know what you are getting.

Often, yes — it can be scaled to the size you ordered and you will see the result on the proof. Very different proportions distort, so the right size is always better than a close one.

That is deliberate. Inside panels are made slightly narrower so they tuck in neatly instead of catching when the leaflet is folded.

Do not approve it. Download it and open it in Acrobat first, because some problems only exist in the on-screen preview. If it is still wrong, tell us before you approve and we will look at the file.

No — proofs are digital. You see how the artwork will print, not a printed copy of it.

The press checks the file once more before printing. Small things are fixed so your order is not held up. If something bigger needs you, we email and hold the order until you approve a revised proof or send a new file — which can move your delivery date.

Almost always one of: no bleed, content too close to the edge, low-resolution images, the wrong size, or export settings that lost the fonts. The email says which. Fix it and upload again — your quote and your price stay as they were.

Possibly, depending on how far the job has gone. Tell us as soon as you know and we will try to pull it back so you can upload the new file.

Every price you are quoted excludes VAT, and VAT at 20% is added at checkout. Some printed matter is zero-rated in UK law and it can depend on the content as well as the product, so if you think your job qualifies, ask us before you order. HMRC's guidance on zero-rating printed matter has the full rules.