Prepress & Artwork
Bleed, resolution, fonts, PDF export — turn your design into a print-ready file
- Audience
- Designers・Print Production Staff・Brand Owners
- Bleed
- Resolution
- Illustrator
- Canva
- Print Submission Guidelines
- Fonts
- File Output
Font Outlining vs. Embedding: Risk Management Every Designer Needs to Know Before Printing
Does your print file look perfect on screen, but turn out with missing characters or broken strokes in the final product? This is the most common sigh I hear on the production floor. This tutorial explains how to make the right decisions and avoid common file pitfalls
Before Sending Illustrator Files to Print: 10 Traps Designers Often Miss
Your design looks flawless on screen, but comes out full of errors in print? In my 10+ years working in print shops, these are the most common file traps I see. This checklist helps you catch over 90% of reprint risks, protecting your design quality from day one
Stop Ruining Your Canva Prints: A Print Consultant's Guide to Avoiding Color Shifts and Bleed Traps
Looks great on screen, but terrible in print? That is the single most common complaint I hear on the press floor. This guide covers the three hidden traps of printing from Canva, fixing them right at the source so your final product looks the way you intended
Business Card Design and Printing Tips: A Checklist for Dimensions, Bleed, and Finishing
A business card is your brand's first handshake. But from dimensions and bleed to finishing touches, every step has hidden traps. Wasting money on a reprint is one thing, but spoiling that first impression is even worse. I condensed over a decade of hands-on experience into a practical checklist so you get it right the first time, from design to print
Overprint, Knockout, and Trapping: Mastering 3 Printing Pitfalls to Avoid Disastrous Results
A file might look flawless on screen, but printing is a different story, text disappears, or annoying white edges appear next to patterns. These problems often stem from a few overlooked settings. This article breaks down the three file pitfalls that printing houses fear most, helping you avoid costly mistakes at the source
12-Point Print File Rescue Checklist: A Senior Consultant Shows You How to Avoid File Landmines
A file can look flawless on screen and turn into a different story in print. That is the complaint I have heard most often in more than ten years in the industry. This checklist distills the 12 communication gaps that most often trip up production teams and designers. Treat it as your final line of defense before sending files to print, and it can stop more than 90% of reprint disasters
Don't Let Your Printed QR Codes Fail to Scan: A Print Consultant's Practical Checklist
A bad QR code print doesn't just waste page space. It ruins an entire marketing campaign. In my years of experience, the problem almost always comes down to a few overlooked prepress details. Here is a direct checklist covering size, quiet zones, and error correction so your printed QR codes scan every single time
Avoiding Pitfalls in RGB to CMYK Conversion: A Senior Consultant's Checklist
Vibrant designs on screen turning out dull and muddy in print is a common point of contention between designers and printers. This isn't anyone's fault; it's a fundamental physical difference between the two color modes. Drawing on my years of practical experience, this article provides a checklist you can follow across the pre-, mid-, and post-conversion stages to ensure your hard work translates perfectly to print
Printing Typography: From Font Size and Leading to Knockout Text, Avoiding the Visual Trap Between Screen and Print
A design might look perfect on screen, but using the wrong font size or incorrect leading is a disaster once printed. Drawing on over a decade of hands-on printing experience, this article provides key safety guidelines for typography settings to ensure your design translates perfectly and saves you from costly reprints
The Complete Guide to Business Card Sizes and Print Specs: A Must-Read for Designers and Print Buyers
The most common standard size for business cards in Taiwan is 90x54mm, but the devil is in the details. Understanding bleed, safe zones, and color modes is what separates a print job that lands perfectly from one that sends you back to the press. This guide draws on over ten years of industry experience to walk you through everything you need to know before sending files to print
Bleed and Safe Area: How Much Margin Does Your Print File Really Need?
Even designers with ten years under their belt have seen unexpected white edges. The only difference is how many times it took to learn. This guide breaks down bleed and safe area completely, plus a pre-flight checklist so your job goes to press without a hitch
CMYK vs. RGB: Why Vibrant Screen Greens Print Muddy and How to Fix It
Does your artwork look vibrant on screen but turn dull and dark in print? Drawing from hands-on production and client prepress experience, this guide breaks down the color gamut gap between CMYK and RGB, file export settings, and soft proofing tips so you can dodge common color matching traps
Finished your business card design? How to hand off files so the printer doesn't mess them up
A finished business card design isn't a print-ready file, skip the bleed, stay in RGB, or forget to outline the type, and the problems only blow up at the press. This guide lays out everything to do between finishing the artwork and sending it to print. Follow it and what comes off the press will match what's on your screen
How to Pick the Right Poster Size in Taiwan: A0, 8K, and 4K Print Specs, All in One Place
Getting the size wrong before you print means redoing the whole job, and burning both time and money. This guide draws on years of experience on the production floor and the client side to cover Taiwan's most common poster sizes, the difference between A-series and open-sheet sizing, plus bleed and resolution specs, everything you need to nail the specs before you send the file
DPI vs. PPI: What's the Difference, and What Resolution Do Print Files Actually Need?
'It looked perfectly sharp on screen, so why did it come out blurry?' This is the most common trap designers and buyers fall into. This article breaks down the fundamental difference between DPI and PPI, explains why printing demands 300 dpi, and walks you through the simplest pre-submission self-check so you never send a file you'll regret after it's printed
Vector vs. Raster: Why Your Logo Must Always Be a Vector File
Print shops always ask for a "vector file" — but what is the actual difference? This article gives you a simple test to tell whether a file is raster or vector, and explains why logos, die lines, and foil-stamping plates cannot work without vector files, so you never end up with pixelated print again