It can be so frustrating to spend a lot of time and energy designing your work only to get something that's far from what you envisioned after presenting your files to the printer. These problems at the printing stage can hugely affect your productivity and lead to financial losses. So how do you ensure a smooth transition from the design to print stage without incurring expensive mistakes or hurting your marketing goals? Here are some measures that you can put in place to ensure that your graphic design files are ready for the printing stage.

Include the desired fonts

Fonts can make or break your business cards, flyers, brochures, or any other documents that you are preparing. If the fonts are too small, they may not be easy to read, and if they are too big, they will waste valuable space. Choosing a suitable font size is a decision that should be made during the design stage. Similarly, it is critical to determine the appropriate font type before presenting your designs to the printer. This will prevent a situation where the printer may substitute your font type if they don't have it. Take the time to embed the desired font into the document and inform your printer to avoid any disagreements after production.

Proofread your files

Errors are bound to occur when designing a document for printing. You may have left a few typos and grammatical errors, given an incorrect telephone number or quoted the wrong email or web address. Even a simple comma can dramatically change the entire meaning of a sentence. If such mistakes are noticed after printing, they can lead to financial losses or even damage your business' reputation if documents are distributed to the existing and potential clients. Thoroughly proofread your design files for typographical, grammatical and punctuation errors before presenting them to the printer.

Check image resolution and dimensions

If there are any images in your files, it is critical to verify their dimensions and resolution before printing. Ideally, the image should fit the document and its resolution should be high. The quality of a picture can be degraded if it is dramatically enlarged from its original size. Such mistakes will result in an amateur finished product that may not meet your marketing goals. Correcting image resolution and dimension errors after a production run can be quite costly.

Finally, always print out a proof before giving the green light for bulk printing. This will offer you an opportunity to correct any errors and mistakes and have an idea of what to expect in the finished product.