Document printing and copying, same day in Walthamstow

Most document jobs are straightforward. The ones that go wrong nearly always go wrong for one of these reasons, and all of them are avoidable in thirty seconds.

Send a PDF, not a Word file. A .docx re-flows depending on which fonts the opening computer has installed, so your carefully laid out document can arrive with different line breaks, a table pushed onto a new page, or a heading stranded at the bottom. Export to PDF and what you see is what prints. If you can only send Word, tell us and we will send back a proof to check first.

Check the page size before you send. Documents built on US templates come out as US Letter rather than A4. Printed on A4 that gives slightly wrong margins all round, and printed to fit it shrinks everything by a couple of percent. We spot it, but it is quicker if you set it right at source.

Say if page one is a cover. For double sided documents we need to know whether page one should be its own sheet or backed by page two. It sounds obvious and it is the single most common reprint.

Embed your fonts. If you have used an unusual font, tick embed fonts when exporting the PDF, or the printer substitutes something else and your layout moves.

Tell us the finish when you order, not after. Binding and lamination are both much easier to plan in than to add on.

Anything genuinely broken in a file, we can fix. Document and artwork repairs start at £15.

We print contracts, coursework, dissertations, scripts, presentations, certificates, handbooks, menus, price lists, tender documents and court bundles. A4 and A3, black and white or full colour, on anything from 80gsm plain paper up to 350gsm card.

The pricing is banded, and it is worth knowing how. Each band's rate applies to the sheets in that band, so on A4 black and white, sheets 1 to 19 are 70p each, 20 to 49 are 50p, 50 to 99 are 40p, and everything from 100 up is 30p. A 200 page black and white document does not cost 200 times 70p. It costs considerably less, and the calculator above works it out exactly.

Double sided is usually the better buy. It halves your sheet count, which often drops you into a cheaper band as well as using less paper. For anything being bound or posted it also just looks more professional.

Paper makes more difference than people expect. A tender document, a portfolio or a set of certificates printed on 120gsm bond instead of 80gsm plain feels like a different document for a few pounds more. We will always tell you when a better paper would lift the job for roughly the same money. See the paper weights guide for what each weight feels like.

Sending the file. Email to info@walthamprint.co.uk for anything under 10MB, or send a Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive or WeTransfer link for anything larger. Any download link works. There is a £15 minimum spend on document printing, and when you book before 12pm we give you a collection time the same day rather than a vague "later on".

For drawings, CAD output and anything larger than A3, plan printing is the right page, because it goes up to A0 and prints true to scale. For posters and display work, see posters.