What to send with the print file

The knife and the ink are two files

A dieline says where the steel cuts and creases. A print file says where the ink, foil, and UV go. The dieline article on this site covers what to send instead of “make this photo”. This page is only the print file that has to sit on that path.

Wenzhou Taishan Printing plates with Kodak CTP and prints wrap and cartons on Heidelberg in the same Longgang plant. Prepress still needs a file it can open, not a picture of a file.

Editable, and not a flattened JPEG

Send AI or PDF that still has vectors, or a PDF exported for print after fonts are outlined. A JPEG, a PNG, or a screenshot of the layout is a reference. It is not a plate.

If the only art you have is a render, say so. We can quote a structure. We cannot cut type out of a photograph and call it your brand file.

• AI or print PDF, not a social-media export.
• One design per file, named by structure and version.
• Placed images linked or embedded, at the size they print.

Layers the plant can separate

Put process colour, spot colour, foil, spot UV, and emboss on layers or swatches a prepress operator can turn off one at a time. A gold glow painted inside the CMYK image is not a foil plate.

Name spots with the Pantone or with the words “foil” and the panel. “Gold” inside a layer called Layer 1 is how a job prints as process yellow, or how it stops until someone asks.

White ink, if you need it on kraft or film, is its own plate. Do not leave it as a paper-coloured shape with no name.

Fonts and outlines

Outline fonts, or send the fonts with the package. A missing font substitutes on someone else’s machine and the legal line moves.

Very small type on an uncoated wrap or across a crease will fill in or crack. If a line must stay readable, mark it. Do not assume the screen zoom is the press result.

Bleed is a reply, not a number on this page

Art should extend past the trim so a cut does not leave a white line. How much extension this job needs comes back with the dieline check. This article does not publish a millimetre and call it the factory rule.

Keep logos, barcodes, and legal text inside the area you can accept after the cut. Say which of those must not move onto a flap or into a glue zone.

What fails when the “final” file is a picture

Send the path and the ink file as a pair. If the path is still moving, label the print file as not for plate.

• JPEG named final: no vectors, no spots, no foil plate.
• Foil drawn as a gold gradient in CMYK: it prints as ink, or the whole job stops until someone asks.
• Ten versions in one PDF with no page labels: we will ask which page is the order.
• Bleed invented as a fixed millimetre in the email: wait for the dieline check.
• Fonts not outlined and not attached: the line you approved is not the line that plates.