Guides

Notes from the shop floor.

Short, practical pieces on the parts of prepress that go wrong most often — folding, trimming, backing up and getting a file past the RIP — written from jobs that went wrong first.

Reading a folded dummy

Fold a blank sheet, number the pages, unfold it. The quickest way to see why an imposed sheet looks scrambled and where creep pushes the inner pages.

Try it in the editor 02

Bleed, trim and safe area in millimeters

How far to extend the art, how far to keep type back from the cut, and why 3 mm is the usual answer to both.

Try it in the editor 03

Gutters for a slitter versus a guillotine

A slitting cutter steps one constant pitch; a guillotine cuts wherever you set the back gauge. The sheet has to be built for the machine you own.

Try it in the editor 04

Choosing a signature size

Four, eight, sixteen or thirty-two pages per sheet, and what each choice costs in paper, folding time and binder capacity.

Try it in the editor 05

Duplex settings that do not flip your backs

Long-edge or short-edge, mirrored back sheets, and the one test sheet that settles it for good.

Try it in the editor 06

Getting a PDF ready for a RIP

Embedded fonts, CMYK with an output intent, hairlines, overprint, and the handful of checks worth running before a plate is made.

Try it in the editor