So you've designed a flyer or something nice for your sales team, or you received a file from your designer and it's time to print them up. Here are a few tips to make your life easier and help insure you don't end up making a lot of mistakes that fill up your recycling bin. Printing Pre-Press is art and science and should usually be left to the professionals. But hey, we're all looking to save a buck and it seems like it should be easy.

1. Just because it's on your screen, doesn't mean it will look good on paper. ALWAYS get a hi-res proof done of any file you are sending to print to make sure everything looks good.

2. ALWAYS ask your designer (if you're using one) for a final, press ready version of the file you're working on. Do not assume a proof is a final, print ready file.

3. Learn what "rich" black means.

4. Proofread your text. Proofread your text again. The best technique I've found is to read each word individually BACKWARDS. This forces you to look at each word instead of letting your mind assume it's correct.

5. Just because spellcheck doesn't find a misspelling doesn't mean it's correct. When you want to say "your print job" but write "you're print job" spellcheck will think everything is aok.

6. Learn what CMYK color is and make sure all of your files are set up accordingly.

7. General knowledge says that photographic or bitmapped images need to be 300dpi at full size. This isn't really true. You actually need 1.5 times the linescreen you will be using. That means unless you're using 200lpi, 300dpi is overkill.

8. Word is probably the worst program you can use to prepare a print file. Buy and learn Adobe InDesign, the industry standard for digital print production.

Hopefully these will help you, as I think of more I'll try to add them.