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HOW DO I ORDER?

Select the product that your want from the products menu. Specify the paper, sides to be printed, quantity and turnaround days and click on “Add to Basket”. Follow the instructions to confirm and place your order. You will then be asked to pay for the job. After the job is paid for, you will receive a confirmation email with the job reference number indicating a successful order. E.g. Order#5000. Please use that job reference number for all the communication with Belfast Print Online regarding that job. If you have any difficulties, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

ORDER CUT OFF TIME?

In the case of a PDF job where the client has provided the artwork, if a job is placed before 2pm and approved before 3pm of the same day, we process the job on that day. If no proof is required the cut off time for placing the order is 3pm. If a design service is required, then these cut off times and our standard turnaround times do not apply. We will need to draw up the Design first then ask for your approval. Then the job will be sent to print and then our standard turnaround times will apply i.e 5 - 6 working days for delivery.

WHEN DO I PAY?

If ordering through our website, you will be asked for payment before your order is confirmed. If you have requested a quote, our team will provide you with an invoice link once you confirm the job.

HOW DO I PAY?

We offer standard e-commerce payment options i.e debit and credit card. If you need help making a payment please don’t hesitate to contact us as you can also pay by card over the telephone.

WHERE'S MY INVOICE?

You will receive an email containing the invoice once the job status changes to complete. You may also view any of your previous invoices by searching for the job in the customer area.

WHAT IS ARTWORK BLEED?

We require Bleed to allow for tolerance in the print and finishing process. If a design finishes exactly at the edge of the required finished size, then without bleed, when the job is trimmed there may be slight white edges to the finished print. By extending the background colour or image beyond the edge of the finished job, this defect can be rectified. We recommend that elements intended to go to the very edge of the finished job should extend 3mm beyond the edge. Similarly, within the printed area a quiet area of 5mm from the edge of the job should be allowed. Important elements of the design should not be placed in the quiet area. This prevents important features such as text from being cut off due to alignment tolerances, and where misalignment occurs it will be much less noticeable. For example a 2mm border on a business card which is cut with a misalignment of 1mm will look unbalanced.

HOW DO I UPLOAD MY ARTWORK?

You will be presented with an upload artwork link after you make payment for your order. You can also click here to upload your artwork.

WHAT FORMAT DOES MY ARTWORK NEED TO BE?

The artwork should be in Press ready PDF ( font embedded) format, CMYK format, with a minimum of 300dpi resolution. We process only in CMYK format.If there are any Spot colors in the artwork, it will be converted to CMYK.

HOW DO I PREPARE MY ARTWORK FOR UPLOAD?

For a detailed description please view our artwork-guide.
Page size
Ensure your artwork is on the correct page size. You can download our standard page sizes from the artwork guide.


Bleed
Make sure there is a 3mm bleed around the finished artwork . Bleed is required to allow for the tolerance of guillotines used in the finishing/cutting of the job and eliminate any margin of error. We recommend a 4mm clearance from trim size for all important elements - text, imagery etc.

Processing colours
There are four basic, universal colours in the printing industry: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. Unless you are using a 5th (spot) colour in your document everything should fall within these four colours, including Pantones, unless the Pantone is a 5th color. If you plan to use Pantones for fills, be sure to convert them to CMYK or use Pantone to Process. Watch the Pantone conversion as colour shifts will occur.

Font
Please make sure all fonts used in the artwork are embedded while producing your PDF. Where you have used a rate font outside the ‘normal’ range we recommend converting the text created with this font into curves, paths or outlines - dependent upon the software package being used. This means that we do not necessarily require the original font when we print your job.

Flattening
Always flatten the layers in your artwork before converting to PDF. This eliminates any problems with special effects (Drop shadows, Embossing, Feather, external plug-ins ef- fects etc.) at the time of processing at a later stage. It will also reduce the size of your pdf and speed up processing time.

Overprint
This is the problem in which artwork to press looks perfect on screen, but dreadful in print. E.g. when areas of solid black allow images behind to show through. The overprint settings need to be set correctly before going to press, which is why modern page layout pro- grams such as InDesign and pre-press programs like Acrobat have built-in PDF overprint Preview options. Please check PDF by “Overprint Preview ON” (Shift+Ctrl+7 for Windows), (Shift+Command+7 for Mac). These allow you to spot potential over printing problems before the become expensive!

Booklets
All PDF’s should be single sided pages with cut marks/bleed and not created as spreads. Incorrect blending options In setting up blends where the colour fades, we have commonly found that one colour is set at 100% and fades to white or 0% of the starting and sometimes different colour. Please refrain from setting up your blends like this as it causes unexplainable banding. While it may seem logical to do so, this is not practical because white is not considered a colour in the printing world and realistically you cant’ have a 0% of any colour. When setting up your blends, set your ending colour at a minimum of 1% of your starting colour. This will insure against any blending problems.If you are using a 5th colour for a blend, start at your Pantone and end at a minimum of 1% of that same Pantone.

Resolution
Images should be 300 dpi with a minimum of 200dpi. Any less will result in a blocky image.

File size
Unnecessarily large files will cause a slow down in the processing of your files. An image for and A4+3mm bleed at 300dpi is absolutely NO larger than 40MB. Anything beyond that and the laws of negative returns comes into play. Please to file size question for help reducing file sizes.

HOW DO I REDUCE THE FILE SIZE?

If an image is going to be resized up or down in your publication we offer the following sizing conventions: You can safely enlarge your image to 120% of its original size in the application. Anything beyond that and the resampling rate degrades the quality of the image. When reducing the image in size, anything below 75% of its original size results in a 23MB file. That equates to less processing time.

WHERE’S MY JOB?

You will receive emailed updates whenever the status of your job changes.

WHERE’S MY DELIVERY?

We will email you the details of the current status of your delivery. Please feel free to contact us to get upto date tracking of your order.

ORDER CUT OFF TIME?

Is there any cut off time for placing the order each day? In the case of a PDF job, if a job is placed before 2pm and approved before 3pm of the same day, we process the job on that day. If no proof is required the cut off time for placing the order is 3pm.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO RECEIVE MY ORDER?

Our standard lead time for your order to arrive with you takes approximately 5 - 6 working days on most of our products, unless otherwise noted in the product page. If you need a job sooner please contact us by email or phone to enquire if we can order your product for a faster delivery. Note: An additional fee will apply for a faster turnaround.

DO YOU OFFER A WHITE-LABEL PRODUCT?

Yes, all orders are dealt with as White-label and we ensure none of our branding is visible on arrival at your customer.