A Print-Ready Checklist for a Small Design

A small design is ready to print when a stranger could produce it without asking you where the edge is. That means the trim, the type and the images are decided, not merely looking acceptable on your screen. This checklist is for a card, a one-page sheet or a modest poster. It is not a full prepress manual. When a printer gives you a specification, their note outranks a general habit.

Trim, margin and bleed

Know the finished size, and draw it. Inside it, keep a margin so that type and important parts of a drawing do not sit on the cut. Margins and White Space on a Small Page is the design reason. The practical reason is that cutters wander by a small amount.

If an image or a flat colour is meant to reach the edge, extend it past the trim by a few millimetres, often about three, and confirm the figure with the printer. That extension is the bleed. Without it, a white sliver can appear along one side. Do not put type in the bleed. Type belongs inside the margin.

Pictures at the size they will be

A photograph that looks sharp on screen can fall apart when it is printed larger than its pixels allow. A common request for photographic images is about 300 pixels to the inch at the final printed size. Line art and type are happier as vector drawing, or as a high-resolution file, rather than as a small image enlarged. Check the size in the layout, not in a separate window where you can zoom forever.

Simple Grids for Posters and One-Page Layouts will not measure pixels for you. It will show you if an image has been stretched off its column. Correct the stretch before you export. A distorted photograph is not a file you can repair at the printer.

Colour will shift

Screens make colour with light. Many print processes make colour with ink. A bright blue on your display may print duller or more violet. Ask whether the printer wants a print-ready file in their recommended colour mode, and look at a proof if one is offered. Do not promise yourself a perfect match to the screen. A Checklist for Judging a Colour Study is about painted colour. The useful overlap is humility: judge the relationship of the colours, not the glow of the monitor.

Black text is usually cleaner as a true black rather than as a four-colour mix that can fringe. If you are unsure, ask. Small type in a mixed grey-blue is a common way to get a soft, unreadable line.

Type, export and a paper proof

Use type you have the right to use, and export in the form the printer requested, often a PDF. If your tool can embed fonts, use that setting. Zoom in on the exported file, not only on the working file. Look for missing letters, hairline boxes you meant to delete, and images that did not travel with the document.

Then print a copy on your own printer at the real size, even in draft. Hold it. Read it aloud. The errors you have stopped seeing on screen, a repeated word, a date from last year, a margin that collapsed, return on paper. Fix those, export again, and send the file you checked, not an older one with a similar name.

Frequently asked questions

What if I have no printer specification? Ask for the finished size, the bleed and the preferred file type before you design the last version. Guessing a bleed and a colour mode creates avoidable reprints.

Do I need crop marks? If the printer asks for them, yes. They show where the trim is when the sheet is larger than the design. Do not draw your own decorative marks in the margin and hope they count.

Can I print a painting from a phone photo? You can make a casual copy. For anything you care about, photograph the work squarely, in even light, at a size that meets the printer's request, and expect the colour to be an approximation rather than a twin.