Printing for corporate offices in London

An office does not order printing the way an event does. The deadline is a meeting, a board date or a tender submission; the file is a PDF that three people have edited; and the same people come back every month for the next report, the next batch of cards, the next set of signs. Corporate printing in London is therefore less about one product and more about a reliable routine: how late a file can arrive, what binds and what does not, who sees a confidential document, and what the printer needs so that nobody has to ring at midnight. This page sets out that routine, and each service page below carries the detail for its product. Our London print shop works through the night, so the meeting sets the deadline.

What does a corporate office print?

Most office work is paper that has to be read at a desk and signage that has to be fitted into a building, and each has its own service page with the sizes, stocks and file rules. The table below is a map of the work that comes in regularly.

How late can a report file be sent for the morning?

Files and payment by 21:00 are the realistic window for a delivery before 9am, subject to that night’s capacity, and the ready time is confirmed at quotation rather than promised in advance. Overnight work is normally couriered to arrive before the office opens rather than at some point during the morning, because a bundle that arrives at 11am has usually already missed the meeting. Saddle-stitched and wire-bound work goes overnight; perfect-bound work does not, so a perfect-bound report is a decision to take earlier in the week. The next-day booklet guide sets out why the page count has to divide by four and what the PDF needs, and where to print documents in London answers the same question for a single document at any hour.

What does a bound report need before it prints?

A wire-bound report wants at least 15 mm of clear margin on the bound edge, because the punch bites roughly 12 mm into it and a 10 mm margin comes back with the text punched through. Setting the margin before export saves a re-export. Pages should arrive in reading order rather than as reader’s spreads, because we impose the document ourselves, and a pre-imposed spread has to be taken apart first — time spent undoing work on an overnight job.

Document printing is costed per printed side rather than per document, so single or double-sided is the first thing to settle: a 200-page report printed double-sided is 100 sheets, and the same report single-sided is 200. Colour is costed per colour side too, so a 200-page document with twelve colour pages is priced as 188 mono sides plus twelve colour ones. Sizes can be mixed in one document — an A4 report with A3 drawings folded in is a normal job — provided the file says which page is which. Corner or edge stapling runs to around 200 sheets and wire binding to 300; beyond that a document is split into volumes, and it is better to choose where the break falls than to leave it to the bindery. The paper we actually hold lists the stocks behind these jobs.

What happens to a confidential document?

Board papers, tender submissions and legal bundles are handled as confidential work: an NDA is signed before any file is opened where you ask for one, and a confidential job is not left out for collection. It is packed and held for the named person collecting, or for the courier booked to carry it. What actually happens to the file in production — who has access, where it is printed and what happens to it afterwards — is set out in can you print confidential documents the same day.

How does an office fit-out fit into a print schedule?

Printing is the quick part of an office fit-out; the fit-out runs on its own clock, and the print waits for the building. The job for a tech company’s Canary Wharf office was four walls and 31.5 square metres of printed graphics and dimensional lettering, quoted in May and fitted in November — not because printing took six months, but because an office fit-out runs on its own clock and the job simply waited. On the vinyl side, same-day production covers supply-only printed and cut vinyl, while fitting is scheduled separately and confirmed with the quote, so a wall graphic can be printed for the fit-out date rather than for the order date.

Smaller office jobs move at the other end of the scale. Two A3 strut cards for a partner event swag store were quoted on a Thursday evening and confirmed ready by midday on Friday, with the cue card count raised from 20 to 30 mid-run, and two A1 foam boards for a City reception were approved at 12:20 on a Wednesday and delivered that same afternoon. Delivery pages for offices in these areas: Canary Wharf, the City of London, Holborn and Liverpool Street.

Where does corporate print get delivered?

Same-day and overnight courier delivery covers London, and the postcodes we deliver to most often — EC1 to EC4, W1, WC1 and WC2, E14 and SW1 — are examples of the usual runs, not the limit. Delivery is quoted against the postcode and the courier available rather than priced from a fixed list; how printed work reaches you in London sets out collection, our own courier and a booked carrier, and what each does to the deadline.

What does an office print job need before it is quoted?

The quotation comes back faster when the first message already settles sides, colour, size, binding, deadline and who receives the delivery. Those are the points that change a corporate job, and they matter more than the product name.

• Single or double-sided, and which pages are colour — a page with a coloured logo in the footer counts as colour, and is often not intended to.
• Sizes and binding — A4, A3 or a mix; wire, loose leaf, Acco fastener or stapling; 2-hole or 4-hole punching if the pages go into a binder.
• The deadline as a time — the hour the document has to be in the room, not the date of the meeting.
• The delivery address and the name that signs for it, or the named person collecting.
• Whether the document needs an NDA — ask for it before the file is sent, because it is signed before any file is opened.

Send the document, the date it is needed and where it goes, and the quotation comes back with a ready time and a delivery plan. The service pages above set out each product in detail, and the case studies show office jobs from first message to delivery.