Book Printing Artwork Support | Expert Printing Help

Downloadable templates

Our templates are perfectly set up ready for you to drop your artwork into. Simply choose your product type, size and orientation, and whether you'd like to work in Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign or PDF format.

The bleed area extends out an extra mm from the edge of your finished artwork. Make sure that you don't place any important content or artwork elements in this area, as it will get trimmed off.

Safe area (mm): mm x mm

We recommend that no text is placed in this area as anything placed outside of this box will risk being cut off.

Frequently asked artwork questions

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What is bleed?

Bleed is an area of print outside the document that must be added to your artwork before it’s sent off for print. By adding the all-important bleed (typically a minimum of 3mm on all edges), when the paper is trimmed in our factory, there’ll be no risk of white space left around the edges of your document.

To make sure you've got the correct amount of bleed for your specific product, we recommend using our downloadable templates available above, or from each product page. These already include the correct amount of bleed and you don't need to amend them.

If you're using a background colour other than white, we recommend extending this into the bleed area to avoid any unwanted white areas on your final print, just keep in mind these areas may be trimmed off or not visible.

What is a safe area?

The safe area is the space just inside the edges of where your print will be trimmed.

Keeping any important parts of your design, such as text or images, away from this area will make sure that they aren’t accidentally trimmed off due to the natural movement while your print gets cut in our factory.

If your background colour is not white, we recommend extending this into the safe area to avoid any unwanted white areas on your final print, just keep in mind these areas may be trimmed off or not visible.

Some products need more safe area than others. For example, the safe area on the inside edges of a Perfect Bound Book should be larger to ensure all text is visible when you open up the book.

To make sure you have the correct safe area, we recommend using our downloadable templates available above, or from each product page. These indicate the correct amount of safe area to make sure your final print is perfect.

Which file types can I use?

We recommend using PDFs to upload the artwork for your book or brochure, which will help to ensure the very best print result.

Our preferred Adobe PDF preset is PDF/X-4:2008 as this is best for printing with.

How far away from the edge should my text be?

We recommend keeping all text at least 3mm away from the edges of your pages.

For some binding types, including perfect binding and spiral binding, we recommend allowing slightly more space. To ensure you leave your text far enough away from the edges, please download one of our free templates, which indicate the correct spacing. These are available above, or from the relevant product page.

Why is resolution important?

Remember to save your artwork out at a minimum of 300dpi resolution. This will ensure that when printed, your artwork quality is as crisp as possible. We recommend after saving your PDF file to open it and make sure everything looks high resolution.

What is the difference between CMYK and RGB?

RGB is the colour gamut used to display images on a computer screen, and stands for Red, Green and Blue.

CMYK is the colour gamut used for conventional printing, and stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black.

No matter which type of book or binding you're printing, please set up your artwork in CMYK. If your artwork is supplied in RGB format, our team will convert it into CMYK before printing which may result in some colour changes. Bright colours will appear with a muted effect, which may not be the finish you're expecting.

What are the best values of black in CMYK?

Using 100% black is perfect for text but not for large, solid areas. If you're printing large areas of black, to achieve a nice rich colour, we recommend using the formula of 20% cyan, 20% magenta, 20% yellow and 100% black.

Should artwork be set up as spreads or single pages?

At Printed.com, for most binding types we arrange our print documents with single pages lined up one after the other (in running order). During the printing process, these pages are assembled correctly.

Page one will be your front cover.
The last page will be your back cover.

When it comes to Perfect Bound Book printing in particular, we handle inners and covers a bit differently to ensure the best quality and alignment for your final product:

Inners pages as single pages:

Inner pages are required as single pages because it helps us accurately sequence and lay out your content. This way, each page is positioned correctly and matches up perfectly when the booklet is printed and bound. It's all about making sure your reader flips through a seamless, professionally finished product.

Covers as spreads or single pages:

For covers (outer and inner covers), you have more flexibility. You can upload them as spreads if you have a continuous design that spans the front cover, back cover and spine. Alternatively, you can upload them as single pages if your cover design is distinct for the front and back.

Do I need to embed my fonts?

Yes, you need to embed or outline all fonts in your artwork.

If you don’t embed fonts and your document is opened on another computer system that doesn’t have access to the original fonts, different fonts will be substituted instead. Embedding fonts into your original design will stop them from changing.

How do I know the width of the spine on my Perfect Bound Book?

To make sure you include the right spine width in the artwork for the outer and inner covers of your Perfect Bound Book, we've got a handy spine calculator on the product page where you can calcuate this.

Simply take the dimension provided, and insert the correct spine in your artwork. You can provide artwork for your spine as a full spread (e.g. one page showing the front cover, spine, and back cover), or you can provide these as three different elements (front cover, spine, and back cover) and our team will put them together before printing.

Although your spine needs to be included in your inner and outer cover artwork, remember the spine won't be visible on the inner covers once your product is bound, as the inner pages will cover this.

If your spine width is 5mm or smaller, we don't recommend including any text in the design. This is because some natural movement can occur during the printing process, and the text could end up encroaching on the front or back covers, or might not be centralised within the spine area.

Do I need to provide inner page artwork for my Notebooks?

If you're printing through our Spiral Bound Notebooks, Perfect Bound Notebooks, Saddle Stitch Notebooks, or Hardback Notebooks products, you don't need to provide us with artwork for your inner pages.

In our product builder you can choose from a range of pre-set inner page designs, including blank and ruled.

If you're printing Spiral Bound Notebooks, Perfect Bound Notebooks or Saddle Stitch Notebooks, you do need to provide us with artwork for both your outer and inner covers. If you would like to have blank inner covers, please insert blank pages for these into your artwork. Your artwork should be in running order, for example:

Page 1 - front outer cover
Page 2 - front inner cover (even if blank)
Page 3 - back inner cover (even if blank)
Page 4 - back outer cover

If you're printing Perfect Bound Notebooks, you do have the option to upload your artwork as spreads, in which case we need:

Page 1 - front and back outer cover spread
Page 2 - front and back inner cover spread (even if blank)

If you're printing Hardback Notebooks, the inner covers are always blank. Therefore, we only need artwork for your outer cover spread. To ensure your artwork is correct, our downloadable template is available above or on the product page.

How far into the book are holes punched for spiral binding?

The spiral holes are stamped about 7mm from the edge of the book, therefore we recommend leaving a 13mm safe area from the edge of the document where holes will be punched,

This is clearly marked in the "spine" area on our downloadable templates. To make sure your artwork stays intact, please use our templates when designing your book. This helps you position your content correctly, leaving enough space for the spiral binding without interfering with your text or important design elements.

If your background colour is not white, we recommend extending this into the "spine" area. This will ensure continuity across the whole design. Just keep in mind that holes will be punched through this area, so avoid including any text or important images here.

What should I consider if my design has heavy ink coverage?

If the outer covers of your book or brochure have heavy ink coverage, sometimes this can make the finish more prone to scratching, and cracking on the spine more visible. To help avoid this, we recommend adding lamination to your outer covers to protect the print.

What is heavy ink coverage?

Heavy ink coverage refers to a situation where a large amount of ink is applied to the paper, often covering a significant portion of the surface. This can happen in areas with dark or solid colours, or in full-colour images with rich, dense tones.

What's the difference between pages and leaves?

A "page" refers to one side of a sheet of paper—so when you look at both sides of a sheet, that's two pages. A "leaf," on the other hand, is a single sheet of paper, which has two pages (front and back). For example, if a book has 100 pages, it actually contains 50 leaves. The number of pages you choose in our product builder includes 4 pages for your front and back outer and inner covers.