What file format is best for printing?
020 3375 6674 info@silverimagelondon.com Open 24 hours, 7 days a week — call or email and we will tell you what is possible today.
A PDF with fonts embedded and 3mm of bleed — that is the whole answer for nearly every job. A PDF is the version of your document that looks the same on our press as on your screen; everything else we accept, but a PDF goes straight to press, and our quotes assume one. The rest of this page is why, and what we check before anything prints.
Written by Maciej Antosz, Production Manager at Silver Image London ·
Why PDF and not Word or PowerPoint?
Word and PowerPoint files print — but they are living documents: fonts substitute and page breaks shift when the file opens on a machine that is not yours. A PDF freezes those decisions at export, on your screen, where you can see them. The one-line rule that avoids nearly every delay: export the PDF yourself and look at it before sending. What you see in that PDF is what the press will produce.
What do we check before printing?
| Check | What can go wrong | How to pass it |
|---|---|---|
| Bleed | Colour that should run off the edge stops at a white hairline | Extend artwork 3mm past the trim on every edge |
| Resolution | Sharp on screen, soft on paper — screens forgive, print does not | Check with the preflight tool at final size |
| Embedded fonts | A missing font substitutes silently and reflows the text | Embed fonts at export (the default in most “print” presets), or outline them |
| Page size | An A4 file for an A5 job scales — and someone has to guess how | Set the document to the finished size, plus bleed |
Where a fix is small, we usually just make it. What costs time is the case where a question has to go back to you — on an overnight job that question can add a whole day, which is why the night-shift guide makes such a fuss about complete files.
What about colours — RGB or CMYK?
Send what you have — files built in RGB are converted for press as a matter of routine. The honest caveat: the very brightest screen colours (neon greens, electric blues) sit outside what ink on paper can reproduce, so they come out a step quieter. If a colour is critical — a brand colour, a match to a previous job — say so when you send the file, and where it is close we would rather print a test sheet and show you than promise a number.
Can you print from a photo of a document, a screenshot, a phone?
Yes, and people do every day — walk-ins print from a phone at the counter constantly. Just know what the trade-off is: a screenshot is a small image of a page, not the page, so it prints at screenshot quality. When the original exists — the actual PDF, the actual logo file — the original always wins. For everything about how to get the file to us at any hour, see where to print documents in London; product specifics live on document printing.
Send us the file
PDF if you have it, whatever you have if you do not — we check every file before it prints either way.
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