Magazine

bleed, safety-area, cover-pages-in-glued-magazines, cross-over-text, creep, small texts,
job-option, cover-files, 
flap, spine, spine, abbrevations,
pdf file, names,
pdffile, cropmarks,
barcode, 

Covers: The perfect bound magazines are made with a technique called hinge binding covers. This requires 5 mm side glue on the front and back covers and is used to hold the magazine together more securely.  When designing double-page advertisement between an inside cover and it’s facing page (aka «crossover»), both pages should be moved toward the face trim by 5-7 mm to achieve a correct continuous picture extending from the inside of the cover to the first content page, because bounding makes «crossover» pages shorter by hiding 5-7 mm of image under the glue.

Inserts: Same applies to perfect bound inserts, where critical design elements should be positioned at least 7 mm from trim-box (spine side). Otherwise some of the information might not be visible. 

See more instructions: Continous picture on cover insides.

Hinge binding method also creates the crease line to the first and last cover page. 

Body (inlay) pages: Also this process will affect facing pages of magazines with many pages. Any elements that are 5 mm or less from the binding edge and are not intended to bleed will be lost in the cutter of publication. Here the moving distance largely depends on paper type and thickness (hence generally the moving is not needed for content pages).

Avoid the cross-over text but instead use large character kerning between center letters or position the "space" between words. See Double-page ad in perfect binded magazine.

The weight of the cover material should be proportional to the size, thickness and weight of the book block; the thicker the book block, the heavier the cover material. The recommended relationship between thickness of the book block and the cover basis weight is given in Table "Book block thickness - Cover basis weight" (ISO 16763:2016(E) 4.8.2. at www.iso.org).

Up to 15 mm: 120 – 250 g/m²
From 15 mm to 30 mm: 150 – 320 g/m²
Above 30 mm: 200 – 400 g/m²

Texts and other critical design elements (borders, lines etc) must be placed at least 4 mm from the trim box at prepressure.com. See more info: checklist#critical-text-in-trim.

In case when the magazine is glued (perfect binding is used) the content pages are not fully visible in the area near the inside binding. Hence, important designs elements should not be positioned near the binding area where these elements can be hidden when the magazine is not fully flattened. See more info: Double-page ad in perfect binded magazine.

In case of A5-format stiched brochure, if possible, do not use full backgrounds, but leave 1-2 mm white space to the binding side of page for avoiding the appearing of the line of background on the opposite page due to the possible folding tolerance.

In the design it must be taken into account that the middle strip of adhesive which connects the pages covers about 1 mm of both pages (the width of the glue strip is 2 mm). There is no need for a white line. Texts and other critical design elements (borders, lines etc) must be placed at least 4 mm from the trim box at prepressure.com.

Avoid the cross-over text but instead use large character kerning between center letters or position the "space" between words. See Double-page ad in perfect binded magazine.

20-, 28-, 40- and 56-page signatures are printed using folding-scheme, where some sheets are not double (4-page), but are single (2-page) sheets and have glue strip covering area with width up to 10 mm on inner side. On particular area images and design elements have to be avoided: 10 mm of safety area has to be used.

Safety area is necessary on following pages with narrower printing area:

a) 20 page signature: pages 12-13; 16-17

b) 28 page4 signature: pages 19-22

c) 40 page signature: pages 21-22; 27-30; 35-36

d) 56 page signature: pages 31-32; 39-42; 49-50.

In binding and finishing process, when printed product is folded, the creep occurs when the bulk of the paper causes inner pages be pushed out and having a progressively smaller trim size than the outer pages. The creep becomes more noticeable and can result in loss of text, distortion of the image or the uneven page borders in case of heavier thickness of paper or larger number of pages. checklist#misconsiderated-creep.

The inside pages of saddle-stitched and trimmed product require shingling - the compensating for creep. If you are sending a document to us, pages will be adjusted automatically for creep.

When a insert or supplement will be added inside such product, the calculation of trimmed page size require to account for the creep.

Colored and white objects (except 100% black) must not have a defined overprint mode. See checklist#white-overprint.

In order to avoid visible effects of misregistration in the case of black text on a colored background, overprint should be defined to all black (100% K) objects printed on coloured backgrounds.

Avoid using solid black (100% K) for large objects over other objects - rich black (C:40, M:30, K:100) or black without overprint (CMY:1, K:100) should be used instead (e.g. the black frame covering the edge of a picture).

Black overprint is added automatically at a printing house to improve printing quality.

If overprint of non-black objects has been used or if there are other special requirements, you should inform repro in each particular case.

Avoid using small 8 point or smaller texts (or text height less than 2 mm, or minimum line width less than 0.2 mm) reverse (white) type in coloured objects (knock out).

The minimum size of oblique or sheriff type in coloured objects should be 10 points.

Avoid placing reverse (white) type into screened areas lighter than 50% or into yellow background to ensure readability and contrast..

For the white text on dark background (aka reverse or negative text) the background color should recommendedly be solid 100% black or classical rich-black (CMY:50:40:40 and K:100%).

In these conditions white trapping (a.k.a. keep-away trapping) is added automatically at the printing house to improve printing quality.

All colour pictures and colours used in design should be in CMYK format.

All used spot colours should be converted to CMYK. All non-CMYK colours: Pantone tones, RGB, Lab etc will be automatically converted to CMYK format by colour profile od printing paper, but sometimes the result can be undesirable.

CMYK + Pantone tone(s) specified in the written order. Other Pantone tones, RGB, Lab etc are automatically converted to CMYK which may remarkably distort the tones requested by the client.

Use Spot color guide for choosing spot color.

Use this Pantone spot guide for choosing CMYK values.

Read Spot UV varnish & Drip-Off when ordering the varnish.

In the design the use of 4-color black (rich black) must be avoided in case of small black texts and line objects. For small black texts use only black ink color (100% K)

In case of large black areas 4-color black (for example C:40, M:30, K:100) must be used.

The color All (or Registration) is not reccommended and will be converted automatically to only black ink color (100% K).

If using PMS metallic (Pantone 871) or florescent colors (Pantone 801) in the design, there should be know that these inks are not transparent but opaque and will be printed as last inks. In case of designing of black texts on top of objects of metallic or neon colors, the non-overprinting black color of CMY:1%, K:100% should be used. If usual black color of only 100% K is used, then black ink is covered with opaque spot-color and the black object will not be visible.

Depends on paper type (see the Colour separation requirements). 

In case of pictures it is ensured by the use of the right ICC profile, in case of vector graphics the fulfilment of the requirement must be ensured by the designer.

Using silk papers in production, smearing can still occur if pages containing images with total area coverage close to, but less than maximum limit are placed face-to-face with pages having a lot of white area.

Double screen frequency (see the Colour separation requirements).

The smaller decreases the quality of pictures, the bigger does not improve the quality, but increases the size of the files and makes their processing slower.

The present guideline is GWG 2015 Specifications.

Continuous perforation runs in a straight and unbroken line from one page edge to the other and is performed with the perforation wheel-knife of the folding machine.

Broken and special perforation is performed with die-cut form. Cardboard is also perforated with a die-cut form. In case of die-cut a special form should be prepared and the whole process may take longer.

Dye-cut line must be designed with spot color (e.g. Dye-Cut or Perforation) and it must be defined to overprint. See more guides: mmprint.com/creating-die-lines-die-cut-printing-adobe-illustrator and threestarprinting.com/creating-die-lines-adobe-illustrator.

Special dye-cut forms must be designed with different colors: knife = red line, grease = green line, perforation = yellow line. There should be avoided double lines and dotted lines.

Folio must be designed as monochrome (only black and white) objects with spot color (e.g. Folio) and it must be defined to overprint. Folio will be added on top of background image without white knockout holes.

The thin line with folio or (knockout) line in the folio background should be at least 0.3 mm width (recommended width 0.5 mm). Color object on folio background (like color knockout text) must have 0.25 mm trapping (e.g. text should be extended with overprinted outline).

The correctness of positioning of folio is 1 mm, therefore avoid thinner than 3 mm lines (outlines) around the folio object.

Folio will be added with hot glue and pressure, therefore the pressure marks can be slightly visible on the opposite side of paper. 

Spot UV varnish object must be designed together with CMYK layout with spot color (e.g. SpotUV) and it must be defined to overprint. CMYK layout and spot objects should be on the same page on different layers. Use PDF/X-4 for layered-PDF. See more guides pdf-settings-en#spot-uv-varnish.

The minimum width of lines or knockout (holes) of objects has to be at least 1 mm.

It must be taken into account that UV varnish is yellowish and can distort background color tones. Also mattee varnishes (and laminate) can decrease brightness and glossyness of color tones.

When choosing additional spot colors, it must be taken into account that most varnishes in case of some specific Pantone inks, due to the chemical reaction, will dramatically change color tone. For example Pantone Purple will turn to pink when covered with UV-varnish. The same happens with all inks containing Pantone Purple, Rhodamie Red, Violet, Reflex Blue, Blue 072, Warm Red and Red 032.

Drip-Off represents an efficient and eye-catching method to achieve matte/gloss effects or matte/structure effects in a single process with just one coating unit.

The principle: in the last ink duct, a primer is partially used. Out of the coating unit, a high gloss coating is applied on whole area. Where primer and high gloss coating meet, a repellent effect is realized, resulting in matte structured area, which is called "Drip-Off". Where the primer has been left out, high gloss surface is obtained. In this way, you can produce fine printing motives without a spot coating plate.

It is also possible to use raster (min 50 %) for primer layer in order to obtain unique Drip-Off structures. 

Drip-Off workflow in printing machine:

1) Offset release varnish/primer is applied in the last printing unit using offset printing plate.

2) Offset release varnish/primer is cured.

3) High gloss coating is applied on the whole area in the flexo coating unit.

4) High gloss coating is cured.

Drip-Off varnished (matte) area must be designed together with CMYK layout using spot color (e.g. Drip-Off) and it must be defined to overprint. See more guides pdf-settings-en#spot-uv-varnish.

Barcode should be designed for the sake of readability with 100% of black color in vector graphics.

Barcode should be precisely readable, therefore the EPS file format is the best (because no blurry edges) but TIF format is also suitable when the image resolution is high (300 dpi) and edges are contrasted.

We recommend to use Free Online Barcode Generator.

The white area for addresing should be minimum 30 mm height and 150 mm length.

The info of addressing is divided up to six lines. Usually these are id-number, company, name, address, city, country. In case of the letter size of 10 points, the info at six lines is 21 mm height, size of 12 points take 25 mm height.

Supercalendered papers
- SC

270%

SC_paper_eci.icc

Based on the instructions at www.kroonpress.eu/pdf

NOTE: Instead of custom "job option" you can use pre-setting "PDF/X-1a"

PDF file can be one-page or multi-page document. The single page PDF files are preffered in case of correction pages.

Each PDF page must only contain one document page, i.e. 1-up single page. The reader's spread layout is not recommended.

NOTE: Prepress software requires one PDF page for each product page. If you sent PDF as double-page ad in one PDF page, we have only one PDF file for two pages. Later, on imposition stage, both double-pages will be cut to single page size: only right side will remain for right-side page and only left side will remain for left-side page. These two pages side by side will form the complete double-page and thus only one complete design will be in final print product.

The reader's spread pages layout for over pages is not recommended. The spread pages may be only used when the cover design is with full two-page continous background image.

The spine of the publication should be designed in the area of the left bleed on the first cover page. The document layout size is then the final cut size of the first cover (it is not including the spine size, because spine will positioned in the left bleed area).

Spine width can be calculated and value should be agreed with Sales Manager.

In our prepress and web approval system Apogee Portal, there is not possible to show correctly the pages in the form of readers spread (double-pages).  Therefore we do not recommend to combine the cover pages as spreads.

Create the cover pages as 4 separate pages - cover page 1 (with spine), cover page 2, cover page 3, cover page 4. If the spine is just white area without design, the spine is combined with first cover page or if you do not have the spine, then leave the spine empty.

If the cover has additional pages like inside or outside (front or back) flaps, then prepare them as separate PDF pages - flap front (OF) and flap back (IF). Please note that the size of the flap page can be different.

If you use WebApproval, then place the files according to abbrevations.

For naming the cover pages it is recommended to use page numbers or descriptive abbrevations: FC or OFC - Outside Front Cover, IFC - Inside Front Cover, IBC - Inside Back Cover, BC or OBC - Outside Back Cover, FF or OF - Outside Flap, FB or IF - Inside Flap. (... taken from "Printing Dictionary" by Prepressure.com)

The flap design can be with different measurements:  for example default width of the flap page is 15 mm less smaller than the witdh of the first cover page.

The name of the PDF file of every printed matter must include the page number(s) and the name of the job (e.g. 003_print.pdf – page 3 of printed matter called “Print”).

Note that the page number is on the first position.

The using of "_" ("underscore symbol") as the separator of page number and job name is recommended: 003_Magazine10-2011.PDF or 003_Magazine10-2011.new.PDF

Multi-page files should have page number range. EXAMPLES: 003-005_Magazine10-2011.PDF

Wrongly named files (unexpected filenames) can create misunderstandings and faulty production.

PDF files must be final, i.e. all digital advertisements and other elements should be already assembled on the layout sent to the printinghouse.

All submitted files should be in the final print size, i.e. 1:1 compared to the final product. The submitted pages must have additional 5 mm bleed at each trimmed side.

Kroonpress recommends for all files submitted for printing and imposition not to use the technical markings, i.e. crop marks, colour identification, file infotext or registration marks.

If the crop marks are used (and also marks designating the perforation line) in the bleed area, there should be take care that these marks must not be closer than 3 mm to the clean publication format (TrimBox). See PDF from Adobe InDesign CS5 #Marks and Bleeds or read more about prepressure.com #PDF boxes.