Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Tutorial 3 How to use our templates
this lesson is on template use I will try and keep the terminology general
so you can apply it to your own software.
First thing is to download the proper template. go to the our website, select your product.
Next select the template tab and click the download button.
Once that has finished, open the template in acrobat reader and get the proper dimensions
for your file.
(our templates are set up larger than trim size to accommodate programs that are not
capable of providing bleed and marks in a final pdf. If your program is capable of supplying
a document with bleed and marks, and you are familiar with the steps to do this you can
skip this step.)
I am using Adobe InDesign, a program which IS capable of creating a PDF with bleeds and
marks, but for the purpose of this tutorial I will show you the steps of enlarging the
document to the template size and how to check for proper bleed and safe area.
Now go to document setup, adjust the size of the file, now my file is already one quarter
inch larger in height and width. This gives us the one eighth inch bleed on all four sides
that is required with offset printing.
another thing to make sure of is to have the safe area clear of text and graphics. You
can see I have a large half inch margin in this file. For those unaware the Margin is
the space around the outside of the document between the text, graphics and the trim edge.
Background images that bleed are expected to go beyond the trim size to the outer edge
of the bleed.
Now if you haven't already, place the template file as an image in your document.
Once we have the template on a separate layer, if your program supports this, we can check
sizing, bleed and safe area setup. *Your document can end up with white edges along the sides
and cropped type along the edges if you don't follow minimum bleed and safe area guidelines
so this part is important.
You can see some bleed examples on all sides of this document. Here on the left the cmyk
graphic extends to the outer edge of the pink on the template. The same is also the case
for the bleed on all sides of this file. Our text and graphics that do not bleed have more
that the required clear space.
In conclusion you can see the Templates we have available on our site can be of great
assistance in verifying bleed and safe area. Better to take the ten minutes now than to
have to reprint the job because you forgot!