PrintPlace.com Blog

As the Internet becomes a daily standard in most peoples’ lives, online printing companies are experiencing an influx of “new blood”. This new client base presents a fresh set of challenges. While online printers’ previous clients most likely consisted of people with design experience and software, the online print buyer of today is less likely to have access to commonly used print industry software – much less understand the lingo! Sure, John Q. User knows how to find the right company to do his color flyer printing, custom calendars or color business cards, but ask him about things like bleed, four color process or coated vs. uncoated substrates and you’re likely to get a deer-in-the-headlights response.

Well, fear not! Printing a beautiful, high quality document using only Microsoft Word CAN be done! Follow the simple steps below and you, too, can create a print-ready Adobe PDF file that can be uploaded to your favorite online printer!

1. Go to the ‘Print’ dialog box
2. In the scroll down window for ‘Name’ choose ‘Adobe PDF’
3. Next to that window click on ‘Properties’
4. Choose the setting “PDF/X-1a:2001
5. Then click on the ‘Layout’ tab at the top
6. Click on the ‘Advanced’ tab at the bottom right corner
7. There you will see only one choice with a scroll bar, that is the ‘Paper Size’
8. Scroll down to the ‘Post Script Custom Page Size’
9. Once that is selected, enter your PDF size, being sure to include the bleed in your measurements.

For most online printers, the bleed size of a document is typically an additional ¼” to height and width dimensions (i.e. an 8.5 x 11 document would have a bleed size of 8.75 x 11.25). Be sure to check your printer’s requirements before saving your final document for press.