Free Online Design, Prepare Files for Print, Web 2 Print

FREE ONLINE DESIGN - Web 2 Print
Preparing Artwork for Commercial Printing

This information was put together to inform our customers of your options for graphic design besides using our professional graphic design services or hiring an independent graphic designer which can be costly.  You can design your own printing projects to send to us for commercial printing using the software recommended on this page.

Acceptable Printing Design File Types
We accept the following file types:  PDF, Microsoft Publisher, Scribus, Adobe products including Acrobat, InDesign, Pagemaker, Photoshop, and Illustrator.

Adobe is the industry standard for high end commercial desktop publishing and graphics software.  Acrobat is Adobe's PDF software, which we strongly recommend for best results when submitting PDF files to us for commercial printing.  InDesign and Pagemaker are very sophisticated page layout programs that work almost seamlessly with other Adobe products such as Photoshop.  Photoshop is in our opinion the best photo editing software on the market today for preparing files for commercial printing.  Illustrator is a very good program as well for illustrations and drawing.

Quark is another alternative desktop publishing program which is commonly used in the printing industry, while we do not support native Quark files, we do accept PDF files created in Quark as long as they support the correct color space for the desired printing method.

Microsoft Publisher is an inexpensive desktop publisher which has the features that support commercial printing for both spot color and full color.  We have many customers who use this software to design their printing projects, either in Spot Color or CMYK Color modes, and has an easy to use feature to pack your files to take to a commercial printer such as us.  You can find this software at most office supply stores, we priced it at $140.00.

FREE ONLINE DESIGN TOOLS
If you are looking for FREE ONLINE DESIGN FOR PRINT, we recommend the following DESKTOP PUBLISHING SOFTWARE Scribus, which is open source (free) and supports many feature usually found only in expensive high end graphic design software.  With this downloadable online free software you can custom design your own artwork for FREE and upload the files to our website for commercial printing.

With Scribus, you don't have to stay connected online while you design, and you don't have to worry about slow internet connections or slow design tools on a printers website.  Simply download the FREE Scribus online design software, create your design on your computer where you can save the file for you to keep and print with whatever company you wish.

Template Designs
Contact us by phone or email for popular template sizes including business cards, postcards, brochures, letterhead, envelopes, and more.  We can also include guides for folding and other similar options.

Unacceptable File Formats
Please note that we CAN NOT use the following file types for commercial printing:  PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Works, Microsoft Excell, and most consumer grade desktop publishing software.  If you have one of these files, convert it to a PDF file.  PrimoPDF and CutePDF offer FREE software for creating PDF files from almost any application.  We can accept PDF files generated from almost all native programs, but due to PDF settings, limitations, or limitations from the native program there may be restrictions or additional charges to correct any issues that may arise from the PDF files during printing.

PDF files must be saved as Spot Color (black or 1 or 2 spot colors) or CMYK files (full color) depending on your design.  The reason for this is if we try to print your black ink document that is setup as RGB it will not print as black but as black built out of multiple colors and it will cost you much more that if it only used black ink.  Likewise, RGB color files will not print correctly on our CMYK color equipment.  We may not be able to print your file if you do not have it setup properly or you could incur additional charges. 

Once you have your design finished, find the product you wish to purchase in our online store.  On the product page you will find a file upload tool for that product where you can upload your design and it will be attached to your shopping cart purchase.