Five truths about Printing

At Copy Express we consider ourselves a very flexible and dynamic small business marketing and printing service, able to cover every step of the production process of printed material from concept, design, production, to distribution. This full service means that we can pretty much handle most things that you could throw at us and if not we have partners who can. While we are very capable and have an amazing team to help you, there are still some limitations that we just can’t get around. I would like to talk about them in this article so you are better informed about what we do and what to expect when you give us work to print.

1. We don’t read your documents

When we get handed a print ready file and are told to print it we have to assume that the contents are correct. We do not read it or check it in any detail.  When we print we only check that printing is accurate and there are no quality issues, for that is what we are being paid for. Now if we do spot an error in the content we will let the customer know before we print a job. If you want a fresh pair of eye to proof the contents before production, then we are happy to do it, we just have to charge for our time at design rates.

2. We can’t always change the files you supply to us

One of our stand out differences to other print centres is that we are happy to edit files if there are updates or corrections to be made and you don’t have the source files. However, there are limitations. Print proof files from other companies are often locked or have their quality reduced so you have to go back to them to have the reprints and changes made through them. Some programs create files that leave out parts you ‘don’t need’ to use them because they assume you won’t be changing the final version of it. Other programs will combine all the different parts of a design in to a single item, meaning that if something needs to be change the whole thing has to be recreated from scratch. In these situations we will always inform you before starting any work and give you different solutions to fix the problem.

3. We can’t always print it the way you expect

We are very flexible when it comes to printing and we will print on material and do sizes that would be far more expensive with bigger companies. There are limits though – a few materials we can’t print on or will damage our equipment if we do. Some material won’t print to our high quality standards because of what they are made out of. Others are impractical because of their cost or specialist equipment required to do it. That all being said, we can often come up with solutions from a different angle that achieve the same effect without the problems or costs.

4. First In First Out – with provisions

The rise of high quality printers for personal and business use means people have the expectation that all printing work can be done right away. We aim to do that for all our customers but can’t always do so. Some jobs require a lot of preparation work, others just take a long time to do because of their size or complexity. We also have to balance the needs of all our customers, so we operate the First In First Out production process so no customer has to wait too long to get their work. However that isn’t to say that we can’t rush a job through if you need at a certain time. To do this we have to move other customers work out of the way, delaying them. This is why we have different pricing scales for different productions speeds, the faster the turnaround the more work is involved and the more we have to charge for it.

5. Time, Quality, Price, Quantity, Complexity; pick any two

Yes, that old expression is true for us too but with a couple of additions that hold true for the printing industry. We have to trade off each of those choices to provide the best balance between them all. We will always work to give you the different options on how your job can be done and let you pick the one that is right for you.

As you can see, while the five points I’ve listed here could be considered negative, I’ve also given you the solutions we have for them. That is what Copy Express is about, being problem solvers for your marketing and printing needs.