A4 Magazine Specs | Print on Paper

A4 Specifications

We’ve created this page to help you fully understand the A4 Magazine specs required for setting up and exporting your designs. We’ve also created some templates for you to download and use to avoid any issues when setting up your document. Our A4 Magazines are printed on 55gsm newsprint stock and stitched with staples along the spine.

Margins & Bleed

Please add 3mm bleed to your document
We recommend leaving a 10mm margin for important copy if you aren’t looking to print off the edge of the pages
If your images are intended to go off the page and you don’t include 3mm bleed you may end up with an inconsistent white margin when the document is cut
It’s possible to print across spreads however please be aware that some spreads will be on separate sheets so may not always align exactly

Images

300dpi recommended however anything above 150dpi should be safe
CMYK or greyscale provides the best results
No spot colours
Black and white photos and artwork can be set to print CMYK or greyscale
All blacks are printed in CMYK so blacks can be set to print either 100%K or rich black
Colour profiles – you can use any generic CMYK colour profile.
Please rasterise gradients as sometimes they can print differently to when they were viewed on screen.

*Remember that colours won’t look as bright and vibrant as they do on screen as newsprint stock is uncoated and it’s not possible to print a very dark black due to this.

Fonts

We recommend using a point size of 8pt or above, however some fonts may print well at smaller sizes.
Please make sure fonts are embedded when exporting your pdf.

Templates

We’ve created these templates for you to download, use the In Design template if you are using In Design CC or above. If you are using different software to create your .pdf you can copy the specs from the visual pdf template download.

PDF Export Settings

Where possible, use the PDF/X-1a:2001 preset

This creates the simplest kind of PDF, and takes care of almost everything that could cause issues at the press.

Export your file as single pages

Your PDF should read in the same order that you’d read a standard newspaper (from front to back). Make sure the pages in your file are single pages, not spreads (two pages joined together).

Ensure you export your PDF with 3mm bleed and crop marks

For our A4 Magazines we require 3mm bleed and crop marks when exporting your .pdf. You will receive error messages when uploading your file if these haven’t been included in your export.

Our site will only check the artwork against our print specifications, we don’t look for spelling mistakes or issues with content. Once your order has gone to print we can’t make any changes.

If your artwork contains any ‘overprint’ or ‘transparency’ commands we will print as supplied (when viewing the PDF, please use an application that supports these features).

Get started, upload your design now