Printing / Sending Your Files - ARRA Creative

Printing / Sending Your Files

So you've purchased a digital file and now you need to print! The best part is, there are lots of options and you can save money on shipping by printing locally. However, we know it can be a little daunting if you haven't done it before. We often get asked for suggestions on the best places to print, what types of paper to print on and about various print settings. Below you will find answers to those questions as well as some other tips and tricks to get the best results.

PRINTING AT HOME
If you have a colour printer at home this is a great option that will save you money and produce great results (depending on the quality of your printer). We recommend doing a test print to see if you're happy with the results. Our files that come with multiple designs on an 8.5" x 11" letter-sized page are ideal for printing at home. You will however need to trim them yourself once they're printed.

1. Choose your paper. This will depend on what you're printing. For anything that needs a heavier weighted paper like invitations and tags you'll need a bright white card stock. For creating stickers or labels you can use full-sized sticker project paper or regular paper if you plan on using an adhesive. For prints you plan on framing, a regular bright white paper will suit. Please make sure you choose paper or card stock that is suited for the type of printer you have: ink jet or laser. 
2. Print from Adobe Acrobat Reader if you're printing one of our editable files. To do this, please open Adobe Reader and go to File > Print. Please note that the blue highlighting you see on screen when editing will not print. It is only there to show you the editable areas.
3. Adjust your print settings. Once you select print, a print dialogue box will open up and there are some important settings here (see highlighted areas in the photo below). 

  • For best quality, please deselect the "save ink/toner" box and the "print in grayscale" box. 
  • Choose which pages you'd like to print. If you'd only like to print certain pages you can type in which ones you would like separated by commas (1,3,5) or (1-4,6). 
  • Please always print at 100% (actual size), all of our files are designed with printer settings in mind and do not need to be "Fit" to the page or shrunk.

PRINTING ONLINE
There are lots of great sites offering online printing, but before you choose where to print you'll first need to convert your editable PDFs to a flattened PDF file (if your file is not editable you can skip this step). To do this please go to File > Print and in the print dialogue box instead of choosing your printer, choose "Adobe PDF" instead (see image below) then hit print. Another box will appear onscreen (or in your taskbar) asking you where you'd like to save your file. Make your selection and hit save. This will give you a high quality, flattened PDF file you can load onto any website for online printing.

If your website needs a JPG file please upload your file for free here and follow the steps on the screen to receive a flattened JPG file. Please note that for larger files like our welcome signs this may not be a high enough quality and we recommend following the steps above. 

Now that you have your non-editable, flattened files you can upload them to the online site of your choice. Some great options that allow you to upload your own designs include Staples, Vistaprint, Costco, OfficeMax, and Shutterfly.

EMAILING OR TEXTING YOUR INVITATIONS
If you would like to email or text your invitation, please edit the "EMAIL" file provided in Adobe Acrobat Reader and save. Upload it for free here and follow the steps on the screen to receive your new flattened JPG file.

PRINTING HELP
Should you have any difficulties printing your files, please contact us and we will be happy to assist you. We can convert your files for you as well, to do this please email your updated files to us at arracreative@gmail.com. 

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