The Tab Department faq page
What file format do you accept?
When uploading graphics to use in your custom index tabs or binders and the design is non-photographic content then the best option is to submit the artwork as vector based PDFs. This will ensure that your lines and text are nice and crisp. JPEGs or PNGs taken from the internet may be fuzzy once printed. You should also make sure that there are no cut or crop lines, all transparencies have been flattened and any fonts used are embedded, before saving your designs. For best results, we recommend using the Adobe PDF/X-1a preset to preflight your designs.If you find our file format requirements confusing don't worry. A human being is always minding your job and if something is wrong we'll contact you and help you fix your file. Depending on how quickly we can resolve the issue this might delay your order but we won't manufacture a bunch of incorrect tabs just because a file was not formatted correctly.
If you are uploading non-vector artwork please submit files that are at least 300dpi for best quality printing -- 600dpi is even better. If you are sending us your logo please remember that good web designers will optimize the images on your website to either 72dpi or 96dpi. While this looks fine on a screen and reduces loading time for websites it is too low a resolution for printing. We would request that you send us a higher resolution logo. If for some reason you don't have a 300dpi resolution version of your logo we can either proceed with the low resolution or we can create a higher resolution version for you. The cost of creating a high resolution version will depend on the complexity of the logo but if you choose that option you'll also get a copy of the file that you can provide to your printer for any print work you order in the future. Also please avoid using fonts below 8pt. Very small text can look good on screen but may not print well
What colour space / mode should I use -- CMYK or RGB?
Colour custom index tabs are printed digitally in CMYK so please provide your files as CYMK. Files provided as RGB can be easily converted to CYMK but often there is some colour shift -- watch out for dark blues, which convert to purple. Since we don't know what the product is supposed to look like if converting your RGB file from RGB to CMYK changes the shade of a colour we won't know to correct for that. To avoid colour shift issues please provide your files as CMYK.
If your custom index tabs incorporate full body art then we require at least a 0.125 inch bleed on all sides. If you are a designer or you are using a designer they should know what a bleed is and how to create artwork with proper bleeds. If you are not a designer and not familiar with bleeds a bleed is the seamless extension of your artwork beyond the trim line. What this means is that the artwork that you provide must be slightly larger than the final product. The reason for this is that printers cannot print right to the edge of a piece of paper. To avoid having a thin white line artwork that touches the edge of a page is printed on larger paper that is then trimmed down. By having the artwork extend beyond trim line it ensures complete coverage right to the very edge of the page. Bleeds are only important is you have artwork that touches the edge of the page. If your artwork is just on the body of the page but doesn't go right to the edge of the page then you do not need to worry about bleeds. As always if you have any questions or concerns contact us and we will do our best to help you.
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