# Prepress

URL: https://tnb-tech.com/en/glossary/prepress/

## What is prepress?

Prepress is the step between the approved design and the printing press: colours are converted to CMYK, bleed is added, fonts are embedded or outlined, and image resolution is checked against the final size. What comes out is a PDF/X with crop marks, plus a proof you sign off the colour on. Skip it and the press runs a file whose mistakes only show up on paper.

**Example**

A printer receives the file for 5,000 A5 flyers. The design is 148×210 mm, but the press needs 154×216 mm: 3 mm of bleed on every edge, so trimming leaves no white slivers. Images are 300 dpi at that size, text sits at least 4 mm inside the trim, fonts are embedded, black text is 100% black rather than four inks, and total ink coverage stays under 300%. The file goes out as a PDF/X with crop marks. Anything missing comes back from the printer’s preflight — and anything that slips through shows up on paper.

**Why it matters for a business**

A print run happens once. A batch with a cropped logo, or with grey-looking black text, is paid for twice. Prepress is the point where the same mistakes still cost half an hour. It is also where the decisions that keep a brand consistent get made: which CMYK build the brand colour is, whether it needs a Pantone, whether two different printers will land on the same result, and whether the varnish and the dieline sit where the design expects them. Prepress keeps the files as well — the working ones and the final PDFs — so the next run does not start from scratch.

**What to ask**

- Who does the prepress, the designer or the printer, and who carries the cost if the run comes out wrong?
- Do we get a PDF with bleed, crop marks and embedded fonts, or only the working file?
- Is there a proof before the run, and is it a colour print or a sheet off the press itself?
- Which profile are the colours converted with, and what happens if the brand colour cannot be reached in CMYK?
- Who keeps the files for the next run, and in what form are they handed over?Prepress and the files the printer needs are part of the print materials we produce.

- Services: [Print materials](https://tnb-tech.com/en/services/print-materials/)
- Glossary: https://tnb-tech.com/en/glossary/