Send us your artwork

Set this before you design. Everything else — bleed, margins, resolution — hangs off having the page the right size to begin with. These steps cover the size only; adding bleed and keeping text in from the cut are in the walkthroughs below.

• PhotoshopFile > New. Units: Inches. Width/Height = final size (e.g. 4 × 6). Resolution 300 ppi. Color Mode CMYK. Create.
• IllustratorFile > New → Print tab. Units: Inches. Width/Height = final size. Color Mode CMYK. Create. — the artboard is your final size
• InDesignFile > New > Document → Print tab. Units: Inches. Width/Height = final size. Create. — uncheck Facing Pages for single pieces
• Affinity (Publisher / Designer / Photo)File > New. Pick a Print preset, or type Width/Height = final size in inches. DPI 300. Color format CMYK. Create.
• CanvaCreate a design > Custom size. Switch the unit dropdown from px to in. Enter Width/Height = final size. Create new design. — free Canva cannot resize a design later — that is a Pro feature — so get this right before you start

Not sure what your final size should be? Tell us the finished piece you want — we will confirm the exact dimensions before you build anything.

A bleed is a little extra artwork past the finished edge — about 1/8" — so that when we cut the stack there is no thin white sliver along the side. You only need it when color or a photo is meant to run right off the edge; if your design sits on white with a margin, no bleed is needed. Magnets, signs (foam board and similar), blueprints and banners never need one — those are cut to size or hemmed, not trimmed out of a stack. The text margin is the opposite idea: keep type in from the cut so nothing important gets trimmed off.

And if you send no bleed at all, that is fine — we will treat it as ordinary copy-paper work. Your job comes back with a white margin around the edge, because no press prints right to the edge of a sheet; your artwork is placed inside the printable area and sits very slightly smaller than the sheet. We will show you exactly how it will look on your proof before anything runs. Only tell us otherwise if you need the colour to run off the edge — that is the job that needs the 1/8" bleed.

• ▶ Understanding bleed, trim & margin — ignore the part about leaving crop marks off — we prefer crop marks included

• ▶ Adobe Express
• ▶ Canva — then export as “Best for Print”
• ▶ Adobe Illustrator
• ▶ Adobe Photoshop
• ▶ Adobe InDesign — we prefer single-sheet spreads, not facing pages

• ▶ CMYK, rich black, spot colors, text outlines, preflight, 300 dpi images & packaging — Illustrator · InDesign · Acrobat
• ▶ Setting up a virtual printer on a Mac

Questions on any of this? Email orders@snappyprint.shop — a real person here will walk you through it.

These all print the same way, so one set of rules covers them. Send one PDF, front then back, in order:

• Page 1 — front of the first card
• Page 2 — back of the first card
• Page 3 — front of the next card
• Page 4 — back of the next card
• …and so on, front then back, all the way through.

Printing single-sided? One page per card, in the order you want them.

Now — how many pages? That is decided by how many of each design you want, and it is the part people most often get wrong. Three cases:

• Every card different. Two pages per card. 250 different double-sided cards = a 500-page PDF — front on page 1, back on page 2, and so on to page 500.
• The same quantity of every design. Send each design's front and back once, and tick the quantity under “How many?” above. Ten designs, 100 of each = a 20-page PDF and a note saying “100 of each”. Do not repeat them.
• Different quantities per design. Then the file has to say so: repeat each design's front and back as many times as you want that card. Five of design A means its front and back appear five times over — the first ten pages of the file. Then design B begins.

Why we ask: the page order tells the press which back belongs to which front, and the repeats are what tell it how many of each to make. Sent another way — all the fronts then all the backs, separate files per card, or a spreadsheet of quantities beside a 20-page file — we have to rebuild it by hand before it can run, and that carries a setup charge. Built as above, there is nothing extra to pay.

Quick check before you send: for double-sided work your page count should be an even number, and it should equal two × (however many cards you are asking us to print) in the first and third cases. If your arithmetic does not come out even, ask us — it is much cheaper to sort out now than after it runs.