Common Questions

It has to be said, we're not a fan of Word Documents or Adobe InDesign files. I mean, we work with them, but we're not a fan of them. If you can send us a PDF then we'd be super grateful. If you're still stuck on how to supply your files then click here to find out what we recommend (or give us a call if you're really stuck, we won't tell anyone).

This one's easy. Use our simple spine calculator and that'll work it out for you. Just don't forget to add 2mm onto the calculation if you're printing a hardback.

This is a bit of a longer one. The basic idea is this. If you try to cut out a picture in a magazine, even if you're suuuuuper good at cutting, there is going to be a tiny bit of space outside the picture left when you're done. Either that, or you will have to cut some of the picture off.

The same happens when we're trimming your book. We either have to cut some of your picture off the edge, or you're left with a little white border (which is really ugly). The bleed is this part of the picture that we cut off. Just make sure your page is 2.5mm bigger on every edge and we will do the rest.

Here's an example if you're better with numbers. I want a 210 x 297mm book with a picture going to the edge of the page, so the width of my document is 210mm + 2.5mm (for the left side) + 2.5mm (for the right side) = 215mm. The height of my document is 297mm + 2.5mm (for the top) + 2.5mm (for the bottom). So my final document size is 215 x 302mm. We will take this document, print it off and cut 2.5mm off each edge, leaving just the 210 x 297mm I wanted to keep.

This is tough so don't be put off if you're not quite getting it. You can either use our free file assessment and we'll let you know if you need bleed, or you can give us a call to get another explanation.

Paperbacks and hardbacks? Make your outside, top and bottom margins 15mm, with your inside edge at 18mm. Booklets and coils? You can get away with 12mm on every edge. Still aren't sure? Download one of our book templates to make it easy.

Please Supply A Background File & Foil file separately
Exception: It is possible if a single file sent is an InDesign (indd) file or Illustrator (ai, eps) file that hasn’t had its layers flattened.

BACKGROUND
Background files can be sent as PDF, any image file (jpg, jpeg, tiff, png), Or as a Word doc, pdf, psd, indd, ai, eps etc, even PowerPoint. So long as it is the right size and includes bleed.

Where the size is different or the file doesn’t include bleed we can resize or try to add bleed but this will incur a cost and can affect the integrity and look of the finished product.

FOIL

If FOILING is just text, we can accept PDFs, word documents, PowerPoint, psd, indd, ai, eps, notepad, and pages. If we don’t have the FONT we may need you to supply this to us.

FOIL IMAGES 

If there are images involved as part of the foil we have two options.

1. Please supply us with an indd (indesign), ai, eps(illustrator) or psd (photoshop) file, that is not flattened and is editable, from here we can change colour and setting easily so that it is readable by the Minolta. 
2. If you do not have the native (original) file where the image was created in an editable format and can only provide a flattened pdf, jpg, tiff, png or an image pasted in Word, we (design) will need to take this image into illustrator and turn into a vector graphic.
   This process is not precise and can vary with results, the more complex the image the less likely it will look as the you would like, In this instance, we would ask customers to understand that the final product will vary from what they envisage.