Brochures & Booklets

• Time to print is in "working days" from the time that you approve your proof; Monday-Friday, excluding Bank Holidays. If your proof is approved by 9am then that day will be counted as one of the working days, otherwise it is not.
• If you do not have a credit account with us we cannot schedule your job until it is paid for.
• If we are designing your artwork, the time to print does not start until the artwork is created and you have approved your proof.

We are happy to send out a sample pack so that you can see the different types of paper and the quality of the printing. Follow the link on the menu to order some free of charge.

Printing is at 200lpi using hybrid screening (our current standard screening). Plates are thermal Agfa Azura TS. No silver chemistry is used for processing.

If you use colour management, we suggest a Fogra 39 profile for coated stocks (i.e. the silk and gloss papers available on this page). If you do not have a colour management process in place then please simply send us your job in RGB and we will convert to CMYK as part of the proofing process.

We do not currently have a full artwork preparation guide for brochures, but here are a few tips that will help. Unless every page in your brochure has a clear white margin of at least 5mm all round then you will need to send your file to us with bleeds. If you don't know what a bleed is, then there is some more information in the help section (use the menu on the left). We require 2mm bleed all round. You should send your file to us as a PDF. We can create a PDF for you from various other formats (see the help section), but some of these may incur extra charges. Everyone can create PDFs! If you don't have a PDF creation utility, visit www.cutepdf.com for a free one that many of our customers have found useful. Your PDF should have seperate pages for each page.

Do not attempt to impose your brochure! Do not submit spreads! Do not submit files with any printers marks!

For thicker brochures, if you would like us to adjust for creep LET US KNOW, otherwise we will do a "vanilla" imposition.

Finally, make sure you use the "safe copy" concept. This is an imaginary border approximately 4-6mm away from the edge of each page. Do not put text (copy) outside of this border!

This should answer most questions, but we will be writing a "complete" artwork preparation guide with templates shortly.

Currently you can choose from:-

A6 portrait; finished size 148x105mm (h x w).
A5 portrait; finished size 210x148mm (h x w).
A5 landscape; finished size 148x210mm (h x w).
A4 portrait; finished size 297x210mm (h x w).

We also offer A4 landscape brochures and many other sizes not listed here. You cannot work out these prices using our online calculators, so please email or phone the helpdesk for a quotation.

Portrait orientation simply means that they are taller than they are wide. If you would like another size, please call us for a custom price.

All of our standard paper is gloss or silk art paper, similar to the paper you would find in a good quality magazine. All paper is manufactured from responsibly managed and sustainable sources. If you'd like any samples, please use the sample request page (from the menu on your left). Of course, you can order brochures with uncoated paper, we just haven't got round to adding these to the web site yet. If you're interested in brochures on uncoated paper, please email or call the helpdesk for a quotation.

A seal is a clear coating applied on press as part of the print process. This is usually applied to silk or matt paper (or board) to greatly improve the "rub resistance" of the printed sheet. This means that the seal improves the resistance to damage caused by finishing processes or delivery. The extra cost is tiny, so we recommend always sealing silk paper, otherwise you take the risk of marking. A seal is not required on gloss art paper, although we will sometimes apply one without charge as this means that we can send the sheets straight to the bindery. There is no difference to the appearance of the printed sheet, a seal is simply to protect the print. For your reference, digital booklets are printed using a completely different process and do not require coating to increase rub resistance.

There is a minimum quantity of 500. If you need less than this, please choose the smaller quantities (digital) option from the menu. Smaller quantities are printed on a digital rather than litho press, so are slightly different in appearance.

This does stump people sometimes, so a short explanation may help. If you take an A4 sheet of paper (a standard piece of photocopier paper for example) and fold it in half - that's four A5 pages (or 4PP A5 - 4 Printed Pages). Fold another A4 and that makes 8PP and so on. Of course, booklets and brochures are also stitched (stapled) and trimmed. Make sure that you include the cover when calculating the number of pages.

You can choose to have the cover heavier than the inside sheets. We pre-crease all covers over 170gsm as standard. If you would like something different, please call us for a price. We can print on cover stock up to 600microns thick (over half a millimeter), but please remember thicker stock is quite a bit more expensive.

Laminating improves the appearance and protects the cover. If you order lamination on thin sheets, you will end up with some curl, even with the decurlers on our laminating line set to maximum. Although it's technically possible for us to laminate as thin as 130gsm, it's going to be a bit springy! Realistically, we'd suggest using at least a 200gsm cover if you want to laminate it.

130gsm is by far the most popular paper weight for inner pages, it's nice and opaque and reasonably light for mailing. 170gsm is popular for reports, especially at A4 size. We do have 115gsm and 100gsm alternatives and these should be considered for booklets with a high number of pages, or where weight for postage is a consideration.

Standard service is 5 working days to print from approval of artwork and we then send your order on a next business day courier. For non-account customers (with the exception of UK government and local government), we do not schedule your job until payment has been made. We can upgrade the delivery service to guaranteed next business day service or a Saturday delivery at an extra charge. If you need it in a hurry then the 2 day to print express service available - but you will need to speak with us and get a custom price. This is so that we can make sure before we accept an Express order that we have capacity to print it in time. All service times are working days until your print job is complete, don't forget to add time in transit to your planning. Collection from our factory is available BY PRIOR ARRANGEMENT ONLY. If you do collect in person, please come to reception (it has the big sign saying RECEPTION!), do not enter any of the factory areas unaccompanied.

Your first PDF proof is included in the price of your order. This will be viewable through your admin area of the web site. If you find that you need to make alterations and resubmit your artwork, we do charge £5 for each additional proof. You can also specify a hard copy proof, this is a colour layout proof printed on a digital press on our standard high quality 100gsm smooth white matt paper, prices will vary for hardcopy proofs depending on how many pages you require and whether you require the proof to be "mocked up" as a booklet. Please call us for a custom price.

First of all, please read section 8 - "How fast do you need it". Other things to bear in mind are that "business days" for the next business day delivery service is defined by the courier company as Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, excluding bank holidays. This is not a guaranteed next day service, though you can pay extra and order this. Although it's not always possible, it's a really, really good idea to build an extra day into your schedule "just in case"!

These prices are from your electronic original, preferably PDF. Please see the help section for other artwork formats that we can accept. If you need artwork designed, please email us with your brief and we will be pleased to give you a quotation.

Please call us on 01452 751900 if you have any other questions or suggestions on how we can improve this page.