A few small things make the difference between a file that prints beautifully and one that holds up your job. None of it is complicated.
Send a print-ready PDF
A PDF saved with a press-quality or high-quality print preset is all we need. It keeps your fonts and images intact, so what you see is what comes off the press. If your design program offers “PDF/X”, that works too.
Native files — Word, Publisher, Canva links, screenshots — can usually be worked with, but they often shift. If a PDF is an option, send the PDF.
Build it at the finished size
Set your document to the size the piece will actually be. A 4.25" × 11" doorhanger should be a 4.25" × 11" file. Scaling a small file up to fit is the most common cause of a fuzzy print.
Give the trimmer some room
If colour or a photo runs to the edge of your piece, extend it an extra 1/8" past the edge on all sides. That overlap gets trimmed off, and it means no thin white slivers if the cut drifts a hair.
The other half of the same idea: keep anything you need people to read — phone numbers, your authority line, the edge of a logo — at least 1/8" inside the edge. Text sitting right on the trim line is the thing we most often have to call customers about.
Signs and banners need a border
Yard signs are cut and finished differently, so they need more breathing room than a postcard: 1/2" of white border on an 18" × 24" sign, 1" on a 4′ × 4′, and 1.5" on a 4′ × 8′. Doorhangers need about 2" clear at the top for the hole.
Pictures: 300 dpi at full size
Photos and logos should be 300 dpi at the size they appear on the piece. An image pulled off a website is usually 72 dpi and will look soft in print even though it looks fine on screen. Large-format signs and banners are viewed from further away, so they can go lower.
Colour
We print in CMYK. If your file is in RGB we will convert it, but some bright screen colours — vivid blues, neon greens — shift a little when they do. If an exact colour matters, tell us and we will look at it before we run.
Not sure? We check it for you.
When you upload artwork through the online print shop, we check it automatically — bleed, resolution, colour, and whether your text sits clear of the trim — and show you the result before you pay. Nothing is rejected out of hand: if something looks marginal, a real person on our prepress team takes a look.
And if you would rather just ask, call us on 301-733-9560 or email info@tristateprinting.net. We would much rather sort it out now than after it is printed.