While preparing quality print data, it is necessary to follow few basic rules.
Bleed zone and safe zone.
Bleed – is a zone that is added to final dimensions of the graphic design. 2,5 mm are added from each side.
Safe Zone is space near the end of the graphic design (Business cards, posters, fliers etc.), in which should not be any important images, texts or other graphic elements.
Let’s avoid frames
In small designs, as business cards, or A6 documents, it is essential to avoid designs, that could cause problems. Mainly frames. In the process of making final product, the material is processed by more than one machine, which each one has a bit of offset. If we used frame in such small design, it can look offset on the final product, so it is better to not use frames in those cases.
Correct resolution
72 dpi – common display resolution, 300 dpi – resolution for quality printing.
Resolution of 72 dpi, is not adequate for quality printing. Printing machines have resolution from 300 dpi to 1200 dpi. The lowest acceptable resolution for quality printing is 300 dpi.
CMYK color space
RGB color space has a wider color spectrum, that can be displayed. It is important to prepare graphic design in CMYK color space. Otherwise, it is possible, that you used color from RGB is displayed, but it is not possible to print it.
Text, its form and size
It is significant to not have text smaller than 8 pt. Font smaller than 8 pt, is not readable from common distance and up close you can see print imperfections.
Before saving final design, you need to convert fonts to outlines, witch function of Adobe Acrobat Pro (Advanced -> Print Production -> Flattener preview -> All text to outlines.)
This function is avialible in Adobe Illustrator as well. (Type -> Create Outlines).
Saving the design
Design have to saved in PDF format. PDF has to be saved without inserting color profiles.
You can find more about preferencies from above in the attached document below. This document also has templates of standard diemensions with bleed and safe zone.