FAQs

Book Cover Set up:

Book cover art needs to be submitted in as one file. The front cover should be on the right, the spine in the center and the back cover on the left.

Layout:

If the cover art has a background over the entire area add 1/8 of an inch bleed for cutting. (Blue is shown above). Keep all type and art such as the barcode at least 0.25 of an inch away from the edge of the final trim size. (Green area shown above).

Other print Requirements:

For postcards, business cards, letterheads, envelopes or any other 1 to 3 color printing, if you do not know how to save your file as Duo Tone, it is important to create your files with one or more of the CMYK colors in substitution for the PMS color you need. For example: for a 2-color business card, you should fill your logo with Cyan (instead of PMS 110U) and then provide us the PMS color you would like substituted for the Cyan.

Please note if your second color for the text is black, make sure to create the text with 100% black and not a mixture of any of the other CMYK colors.

Transparency:

Transparency problems happen when there is a transparent object or an object with a shadow or glow on top of a pantone color.

  • To check for this in Indesign and Illustrator, go to (View) and select "Overprint Preview"
  • To fix in Indesign and Illustrator, select the object then go to (Window), (Attributes) and uncheck "Overprint".
File Requirements:
  • Minimum resolution for printing is 300 dpi or better.
  • 72 dpi, 150 dpi, 200 dpi, etc are not acceptable.
  • Printing from a low resolution files will cause pixilation and a low quality print.
PDF file requirements:
  • Embed the fonts and photos;
  • Make sure to outline or embed the fonts.
  • Embedded photos needed to be cmyk and at least 300 dpi.
Acceptable file formats:
  • Adobe Acrobat (.PDF files)
  • Adobe Photoshop (.psd, .jpg, tiff, .gif, .eps)
  • Adobe Illustrator (.eps, .ai)
  • Adobe In-Design (.indd)
  • Quarkxpress (.qxd)
Bindery options:
  • If you print with Litho Books, we offer
  • Drilling, Folding, Scoring, Padding, Perforation.
  • And on booklets and books we offer Saddle stitching and perfect binding.
How to set up rich black:
  • To set up a rich black, you need to use a combination of 4 colors
  • Our standard rich black is:
  • 40% cyan
  • 30% magenta
  • 30% yellow
  • 100% black

The combination will give you a rich black. Without this combination, you will receive a faded black color. Please note if your text is black, make sure it is 100% black and not a rich black combination. A rich black in text will result in offsetting.

Set up requirements for books:

Text pages need to be submitted on one file. The page size should be the final trim size of the book. Example: a 5.5x8.5 book will have a 5.5x8.5 page or document size.

Bleed should be set at 1/8" on all sides for all sizes. Please make sure you set your pages in printers spread with adjustment for creep for booklets over 32 pages.

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