Preparing Digital Files For Printing

Here at Trilogy Print, we aim to make your life easier by offering 24-48 hour printing solutions for business and individual needs. We offer digital printing services on banners, brochures, business cards, flyers & leaflets, posters, and more.

You can either provide us with your creative designs or select one from our templates. However, rest assured if you do not have time, our creative team can help you create a spectacular design for your business.

What is digital printing?

So if you’re not familiar with digital printing, you might be wondering what it is and why one should consider using digital printing over the traditional method. 

Well, in simple terms, it is a printing technique that involves a complex computing program, communicating and requesting to print the digital file on paper. This new revolution of printing has a number of advantages over the traditional method such as helping you save time, money and providing you with a high-quality end product. Most importantly, digital printing is unrivalled when it comes to personalisation, especially when the new era of marketing involves reaching out to each individual personally.

How do you prepare your digital file for printing?

We know some things can be time-consuming and confusing. Here at Trilogy Print, we aim to make the process as simple as possible so that we can help you save time and you can enjoy doing the things you love doing the most meanwhile. To make things simpler, we accept files in virtually any format and from either a PC or a MAC.

To prepare your digital file for printing, you can follow these simple steps:

1. Choose the right file type and save it in high resolution. Some of the widely used and accepted formats are:
   1. Portable Document Format, also known as PDF is one of the most widely used formats for digital printing because of its efficiency and being recognised by a majority of the printers.
   2. Tagged Image File aka TIF, commonly used in photography and desktop publishing is a large file and has the advantage of not losing quality after editing the file, no matter how many times you do it.
   3. JPEG – This is the most common image format used and provides you with an option to adjust your compression levels. 
   4. AI – This will be your image format by default if your preferred software is Adobe Illustrator. 
   5. PSD – This will be your default image format if Photoshop is your preferred software, which can be a bit trickier as printers usually struggle to recognise this format. Therefore, we would strongly advise you to change the format to either JPEG or TIFF/TIF before printing.
2. Use CMYK instead of RGB in your editing software simply because CMYK is better suited for digital printing, whilst RGB is a better fit for digital media.
3. Ensure all your important information is at least within 0.25 inches away from the bleed edge so that it doesn’t get cut off.
4. Give it a final check to make sure that you’re happy and then upload your file using our form.

What file format is the best for digital printing?

This really depends on your preferences and the end product that you want. However, regardless of your end goal, we would highly recommend using the best image quality for digital printing.

What’s next?

Simply select your printing preferences such as size, quantity and, more. If you’re unsure of the product size or would like a bespoke order, then please get in touch with our team to help you with your specifications.