Setting up a file

When we quote a  job, we quote the job ONLY, not any additional file preparation time, so here is some useful information to help you, help us, go faster.

  • When setting up your file, create separate spot colours for Cuts, Creases, Perforations or any other different lines that are part of your design.
  • Making the colours different for each type of line means that you (and we) can easily see in the file which is the cut, crease, or perforation.  This means we don't have to email you to check, and can just crack on and make ready!
  • Try to avoid jagged lines or ridiculously tight turns - remember that we need to bend steel 0.7mm thick as precisely as possible to your line.  
  • Make sure you use a single stroke when drawing your designs (i.e. no path and fill - just a simple single line.  A stroke of .25pt is usually good to work with.  Again, this will save heaps of time, as path and fill requires intensive re-drawing in Impact to convert it for use in our Bender.  It's much easier and quicker for you to convert all path and fill with a mouse click, than it is for us to re-draw.
  • Convert it all to a PDF when you're ready (make sure you haven't got "convert to CMYK" selected, otherwise all the time you spent making spot colours will be wasted).
  • If your underlying CMYK design is image-heavy, please consider making a second version of your file for us which has the CMYK objects removed.  Whilst we will no doubt love the elegance and beauty of your graphics, they can cause problems in the CAD software which is not designed to use colour information.
  • Don't forget to pass on information about the stock you are using for the job i.e. weight, lamination.  This will enable us to check all fold tolerances before a sample is constructed.
  • If you’re in any doubt about your file formatting, email, phone or call in and see us. We’re always happy to check your files and give advice where we can.

 

 

DOWNLOADS

Download these files if you want an example of a template for business cards or an A4 folder, to get your job off to a good start. 

More templates are available for purchase from Neill.