Stop Making These 6 Business Printing Mistakes

If your business relies heavily on printing, doing it right can be the difference between being successful and failing miserably—good thing it’s easy, right? 

Not exactly! Perfect printing isn’t always as straightforward as pressing a few buttons, especially when it’s for business purposes. There are more than a few common printing mistakes you need to avoid if you want top-tier printing results. 

But what are these print mistakes? Keep reading to find out! 

1. Not Proofreading Your Work 

Grammar and spelling in your text may feel insignificant, but remember that your words are what deliver your message. Careless typos are unprofessional, and unprofessionalism could ultimately turn people off of your pitches, products, deals, and more.

Solution

Proofreading is key to avoiding typographical mistakes in printing. Review everything more than once to spot spelling slip-ups, redundancies, and other errors. Online tools like Grammarly, QuillBot, and GrammarCheck can also help.

 2. Using the Wrong Paper Type

Another one of the most common printing mistakes is choosing the wrong paper or substrate for print projects. For example, printing on glossy photo paper might not be a great idea if you’re going for a readable matte finish.

Solution

Be meticulous about choosing your paper type! If you want to avoid poor print quality, it pays to learn which kind of paper is best suited to your project. 

🖨️ Read More: A Guide to the Types of Paper Stock

Image source: Canva

3. Forgetting to Check Print Settings

Have you ever printed a document with full confidence only to be disappointed because the result didn’t match your vision? It could be because you forgot to adjust the print settings that determine the print size, quality, colour settings, and orientation.

Solution

Before you click that ‘print’ button, first go into your printer properties or preferences to find a pop-up window where you can adjust a variety of options. Make the changes you need to make—and don’t forget to save them before printing! 

4. Ignoring Print Bleeding

Neglecting bleeding is one of the common print file mistakes. If left unaddressed, it can result in white edges around your printed materials that won’t look good on billboards, standees, posters, or anything else requiring a wide format printer.

Solution

Say goodbye to bleed-related print mistakes (and save money on wasted ink) by following these steps when using production printers:

1. Open the print menu and head to ‘Advanced Output Settings’ 
2. Look for the ‘Marks and Bleeds’ tab, then tick the check box of ‘Crop marks’
3. Then, move to ‘Bleeds’ and select ‘Allow bleeds’ and ‘Bleed marks’ 
4. If settings differ, use your device’s printer manual and look for Bleed settings

🖨️ Read more: Print Costs Too High? Here’s How to Reduce Them

5. Using Incorrect File Formats

Not all file formats are created equal—using the wrong ones for a print job is a surefire way to get poor image quality. For example, using .png for print files is one of the most common mistakes in printing because they’re designed for screen use only.

Solution

Improve your printing process by instead saving files as one of the following: 

• • Portable Document Format (PDF)
  • Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)
  • Encapsulated PostScript (EPS)
  • Adobe Illustrator (AI)
  • Adobe Photoshop (PSD)

Image source: Canva

6. Not Selecting Colour Profiles

Colour profiles are standardized sets of instructions that define how colours should appear when printed. Here’s the thing: if you don’t set them accordingly, you may find your printed images don’t look the same as how they appeared on screen. 

Solution

Make sure you’re using the correct colour profile for your printer and for the kind of thing you are trying to print. Most modern design software will allow you to assign and embed these within the documents for colour consistency across the process.

🖨️ Read More: Why You Should Upgrade Your Printer 

Avoid Business Printing Mistakes With Help From the Pros

As a business, you need to avoid these print mistakes if you want to produce high-quality physical materials and assets. However, if you’re following all these steps and still unimpressed with the results, it might be time for a new printer. 

Busys.ca can help! Our impressive catalogue boasts reliable high-quality printers made by the best brands in the printing industry. If you’re not interested in buying, we also offer leasing options to accommodate your budget and needs. 

Get in touch with us to upgrade today—your business deserves the best!