We fix files that will not print right

Print does not fail at the press. It fails in the file, days earlier, and almost always in one of these five ways.

Wrong size. A design built at A4 and needed at A5, an American template that is US Letter rather than A4, or something built at screen resolution with no idea what physical size it is meant to be. Scaling a file is not just changing a number: done badly it softens type and shifts margins, and done properly it is a £15 job.

No bleed. Any design where colour runs to the edge needs 3mm extra all round for the trim to cut through, or you get white slivers. Adding bleed properly means extending the artwork rather than stretching it, which is a different job on every design.

Low resolution. The usual culprits are a logo saved from a website, a photo forwarded through a messaging app, an Instagram export, or an AI image at about 1024 pixels. We tell you the honest largest size it holds at, sharpen what can be sharpened, and if it genuinely cannot be saved we say so instead of taking your money. Sometimes the answer is to redraw the logo properly, which we quote separately.

Screen colour that will not survive CMYK. Bright screen blues, vivid oranges and neon greens exist on your monitor and not in ink. Left alone, the press makes its own decision and you get a purple-ish blue. We convert deliberately and adjust so the design still reads the way you intended.

Text in the danger zone. Anything within about 4mm of the trim risks being cut, and phone numbers, web addresses and page numbers are the usual victims.

This is the part most online printers will not touch. Their system takes a print ready PDF or it rejects your order, and you are left to work out what print ready means on your own.

We take whatever you have. Canva, whether you send the link or the PDF export, and our guide to printing a Canva design covers the export settings that avoid most problems. Word, Publisher and PowerPoint are all fine and we will convert and check. A photo of a printed item you want reproduced works, though bringing in the original so we can scan it properly is better. A screenshot, genuinely, and we will tell you what it can and cannot be used for. Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop are ideal, so package the file with links and fonts if you can. And if you have nothing but a logo and an idea, that is a layout job, which is what a designer is actually for.

Sending it. Email to info@walthamprint.co.uk, or a Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive or WeTransfer link, and any download link works. Send us the real artwork rather than a screenshot or a photo of it, because otherwise we would be fixing a file that had already lost quality on the way to us.

You keep the fixed file. The corrected, print ready version is yours, so you can reorder from us with one message, or take it anywhere else. We are not holding your artwork hostage.

Every order we print gets a free file check regardless. The paid work above is only when something actually needs changing, and we always quote before we start, whether it is business cards, flyers, art prints or a banner.