Common Print Problems & How to Solve Them

Card Print Problems

Cards, Greeting Cards, Rack Cards, Business Cards

Uneven Borders

Smartpress has a cutting tolerance of 1/8″, meaning the trim can shift by up to 1/8″ when your printed piece is cut to its final size. This shift can be especially noticeable when artwork has a border close to the edge. To help prevent the border from appearing uneven or being trimmed off, remove the border, position it at least 1/4″ from the edge or make the border thicker.

Scratches

Scratches can occasionally appear on printed pieces, particularly when darker inks are printed on coated paper stocks. While Smartpress takes care when producing and packaging orders, friction or shifting during transit can sometimes cause surface scratches.

Adding a coating can help protect your print from scratches, while also giving the piece a polished finish. Shrink wrapping is another option that can provide an additional layer of protection during shipping.

Color Transfer or Faded Edges

Heavy ink coverage can increase the risk of ink transfer or faded edges. When printed sheets are stacked, friction between them can cause ink to transfer from the printed side of one sheet onto the sheet next to it.

To help prevent ink transfer, consider adding a protective coating to your print, particularly on the side with heavy ink coverage.

Booklet Print Problems

Cracked Spine

A booklet spine can crack when the cover stock is too thick for the binding. If you’re concerned about spine cracking, consider choosing a thinner cover stock or adding a coating to the cover.

A square backing is recommended for booklets with 32–60 pages. For saddle stitch booklets with 60 pages, consider switching to perfect bound booklets. At 60 pages, a saddle stitch booklet’s spine begins to become less square.

Curled Covers

Curling covers can occur if you store your booklets in an environment that gets a lot of moisture, coupled with if your booklets have Soft Touch lamination on only one side. This is most common with Perfect Bound and Saddle Stitch Booklets.

For Perfect Bound Booklets, we recommend keeping your books in a cool, dry place.

For Saddle Stitch Booklets, the best solution would be to add a two-sided laminate. We also recommend choosing a coating like flat matte or ultra gloss UV and storing them in a cool, dry place.

Booklet covers can curl when they are exposed to a humid environment, particularly when Soft Touch laminate is applied to only one side. This is most common with perfect bound and saddle stitch booklets.

For perfect bound booklets, store the finished books in a cool, dry environment to help minimize curling.

For saddle stitch booklets, we recommend adding two-sided lamination. You can also choose a coating such as flat matte or ultra gloss UV, and store the finished booklets in a cool, dry place.

Bowing Booklets

Bowing occurs when a booklet does not close flat, leaving a noticeable opening where the center pages should meet. This issue can occur with saddle stitched books that have higher page counts, generally 32 pages or more.

Chipped Spine Edges

The top or bottom edges of a booklet can become chipped or torn when there are too many pages for the binding to comfortably accommodate. Saddle stitch booklets can accommodate up to 48 pages when using 80# text stock for the cover and interior pages.

Pages Falling Out

Loose or falling-out pages are a rare issue that can occur with perfect bound books when they does not have enough pages to create a sufficiently thick spine. The minimum page count for perfect bound books is 32 pages, or 16 sheets, which creates the minimum spine thickness of 0.10″.

If your booklet has fewer than 32 pages, consider another binding option, such as saddle stitch binding.

Scratches

Scratches can occasionally appear on booklets, particularly when darker inks are printed on coated paper stocks. Friction or shifting during transit can cause surface scratches, even when an order has been carefully produced and packaged.

To help protect booklet covers and pages from scratches, consider adding a coating. Coatings can also give your project a polished finish. Shrink wrapping is another option that can provide additional protection during shipping.

Postcard Print Problems

Limited Finishing Options

Since postcards are sent without envelopes, the USPS has strict guidelines for mailing them. Smartpress’ online printing services includes postcards with those specifications in mind (along with our Mailing Design Guidelines) to ensure that your order is sent without any issues.

However, because of those restrictions, postcards cannot be designed and mailed with finishing options, like envelope add-ons, rounded corners, folding, laminating and digital laser cutting. If you’d like those options to be available, please consider our Cards, which offer a range of finishing options.

Postcards are mailed without envelopes, so they must meet USPS requirements for direct-mail pieces. Smartpress designs postcards around these mailing specifications, along with our Mailing Design Guidelines, to help ensure your postcards can be mailed properly.

Because of these mailing restrictions, postcards cannot include finishing options such as envelope add-ons, rounded corners, folding, laminating or digital laser cutting. If you need these finishing options, consider cards, which offer a wider range of finishing choices.