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Most print errors aren’t caused by bad design. They’re caused by good designs submitted in the wrong format. White borders where there shouldn’t be any, blurry images that looked sharp on screen, colours that shifted between what you saw on your monitor and what came out of the printer — these are avoidable problems, every one of them. This guide explains the key settings you need to get right, regardless of what software you’re using.
Bleeds: What They Are and Why They Matter
When a printed sheet is cut to size, the cutting blade is accurate but not perfectly precise — it can deviate by a millimetre or two. If your design has a coloured background or image that extends right to the edge of the finished piece, any cutting variance will leave a thin white strip of unprinted paper along one or more edges.
The solution is a bleed: extending your background colour or edge images 3mm beyond the trim line on all sides. The printer cuts through this extended area, and whatever slight variance exists, the background extends far enough that no white shows. For most print products in Singapore, a 3mm bleed is standard — large-format products may require 5mm to 10mm.
When you set up your design, make the document 6mm wider and 6mm taller than the intended finished size (3mm on each side). Extend backgrounds and edge images to fill this expanded canvas. Keep important content — text, logos, key design elements — at least 5mm inside the trim line so nothing critical is accidentally cut off.
Resolution: 300dpi Is Non-Negotiable for Close-Up Print
Screen resolution is typically 72dpi to 96dpi — the number of pixels displayed per inch on a monitor. Print resolution needs to be at least 300 dots per inch (dpi) at the actual print size. An image that looks crisp on a monitor at 96dpi will print noticeably blurry because there simply aren’t enough pixels to fill the physical space.
This is the most common source of disappointment in print jobs ordered by non-designers. The rule is simple: if you’re downloading an image from a website, it’s almost certainly 72dpi and not suitable for print. Source images from stock libraries (Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, Unsplash Pro) that offer high-resolution downloads, or from your own photography shot on a modern smartphone camera, which captures at more than enough resolution for most print applications.
The exception: large-format prints (banners, posters) viewed from a distance. For these, 100dpi to 150dpi at actual size is acceptable because the viewing distance means individual pixels aren’t perceptible.
Colour Mode: CMYK, Not RGB
Screens display colour using RGB (Red, Green, Blue) light. Commercial printers produce colour using CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) inks. These are different colour models, and converting between them can cause noticeable colour shifts — particularly in bright blues, vivid oranges, and certain greens, which are achievable on screen but fall outside the printable CMYK gamut.
If you’re designing in Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, or Photoshop, switch your document colour mode to CMYK before you start designing, or convert it before exporting. If you’re using Canva — which works in RGB — export to PDF and note that Canva now offers a “Print Bleed” download option that converts to CMYK automatically, which addresses this issue for most standard products.
For brand-critical colours, provide your printer with the CMYK breakdown for your exact brand colour (for example, your logo’s specific shade of blue) rather than relying on screen-to-print conversion.
Font Issues: Embed or Outline Everything
If you send a design file that contains fonts installed on your computer, the printer’s system may not have those same fonts — and if it doesn’t, it will substitute a default font that changes your layout, sometimes dramatically. The solution is either to embed the fonts in your exported file (PDF export settings usually include a “Embed Fonts” option) or to convert all text to outlines/paths, which turns text characters into fixed vector shapes that don’t rely on any font file being present.
In Adobe Illustrator: select all text, then Type → Create Outlines. In InDesign: export to PDF with the “Embed Fonts” option enabled. In Canva: the PDF export handles font embedding automatically.
The Safest File Format: PDF
For virtually all print jobs, a PDF exported at the highest quality setting is the safest and most universally readable file format. It preserves layout, embeds fonts, maintains colour profiles, and carries bleed and trim marks. Export as “PDF/X-1a” (the print industry standard) where your software supports it, or simply choose “High Quality Print” settings in Canva, Word, or PowerPoint exports.
Avoid submitting Word documents, PowerPoint files, or JPEGs as your final print file. Word and PowerPoint layouts shift between systems, and JPEGs introduce compression artefacts that degrade image quality at print resolution.
Using ExpressPrint’s Templates
The fastest way to avoid all of the above issues is to start your design using a print template that already has the correct dimensions, bleed areas, and margin guides built in. ExpressPrint provides downloadable templates for all their standard products — flyers, name cards, brochures, document covers, banners — available from the product pages.
Open the template in your design application, design within the guides, and export as a high-quality PDF when you’re done. The template removes the guesswork and ensures you’re working to the exact specs the printer needs.
Visit ExpressPrint’s Knowledge Base for additional guides on file preparation, production timelines, and how to get the best results from your print orders.
