For print shops & copy centres

Get customer files ready for print.

Add bleed and crop marks to customer files. Download a print PDF and proof, then use Imposition for a sheet of repeats.

14-day free trial for new signups. No card required.

AU$29 per monthAI usage limits apply

Customer file

Print PDF

Customer artwork before and after print preparationThe same example business card appears on the left without bleed or crop marks, and on the right on a white PDF page with mirrored bleed and a pair of crop marks at each corner. A separate proof PDF is also provided.HARROW & FENJOINERYMade to measure.

Bleed and crop marks, added.

Plus a proof PDF for customer approval.

Illustrated example · 90 × 55 mm business card

How it works

Upload, crop, download

There's no page-layout app to buy and no training day. If you can crop a photo, you can put a job through.

  1. 1

    Upload what they sent

    PDF, PDF-compatible Illustrator, TIFF, JPEG or PNG. Upload one file or combine several, in the order you choose.

  2. 2

    Set the size and finish the design

    Choose the trim and bleed, then crop each page. Add padding or apply any AI edits before you process the job.

  3. 3

    Process, check and download

    Get a print PDF with your chosen bleed and crop marks, plus a customer proof. Check both before printing.

Need a sheet of repeats? After the design is finished, use Imposition to arrange one page at actual size and download a separate sheet PDF.

Edit with AI

The phone number's wrong.
Type the new one.

Describe the fix and the artwork comes back changed — no email to the client, no waiting for a new file.

Describe the change

Say what to change, not what to draw — the artwork is the starting point.

Suggested edits for this business card

  • Change the phone number to 0400 118 220
  • Remove the second email address under the logo
  • Replace the tagline with a shorter one
  • Move the logo to the top left and make it larger

Instruction

Change the phone number to 0400 118 220 and remove the second email address under the logo
GenerateUsually 60–180 seconds.
What the customer sent
HARROW & FENJOINERYDana WhitfieldStudio Manager03 9412 7788dana@harrowfen.com.austudio@harrowfen.com.auBrunswick VIC
What came back
HARROW & FENJOINERYDana WhitfieldStudio Manager0400 118 220dana@harrowfen.com.auBrunswick VIC

It reads the artwork first

Before you type anything, a vision model looks at the page and suggests edits specific to it — the chips above are what it came back with for this card.

The result is a proposal

Nothing touches your job until you hit Apply. Discard it, refine it, or generate another. The pre-edit image is kept, so one click puts it back.

It tells you the resolution

The model picks its own output size, so the app measures what came back against your trim width and says how far under your target DPI it landed.

What it does

Prepare the design. Then prepare the sheet.

Imposition

One finished design.
A sheet of repeats.

Finish the design and any AI edits first. Imposition repeats one finished page at its actual size, with a preview before you download the sheet PDF.

Choose your sheet
Start with SRA3 (320 × 450 mm), or choose A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 or a custom size. Allow rotation to find an arrangement that fits.
Set spacing and cutting guides
Set the printable margins and gaps between bleed areas. Keep the finished design's bleed and choose whether to include cutting guides outside the grid.
Preview, then download
Check the copies and layout, then download a separate print PDF. Your original print PDF and customer proof stay available.

Your printer may already handle imposition. Use it here if they don't, or to keep artwork preparation and sheet layout together.

Read the Imposition guide
Crop marks
Include eight corner marks around each design, or switch them off when your printer needs artwork without them. The mark style is fixed; bleed and marks can be included independently.
Bleed
Set the width in millimetres and choose Mirror or Extend edge colours. Both build the band from the artwork already there, so check it in the print PDF before printing.
Padding
Artwork that's the wrong shape for the trim gets its canvas extended before you crop, so you can frame it properly instead of asking the customer for a file they no longer have.
Resizing
Set the DPI the press wants. Small photographs go through Real-ESRGAN, a model that invents plausible detail that was never in the file. It holds up on a landscape and shows on a face or a logo, so check the proof. Line art takes a Lanczos path instead, which keeps the edges hard.

Pick the trim from the presets — A-series, US Letter, business cards, DL flyers, posters — or type the millimetres. Out comes one press-ready PDF for the printer and one low-resolution proof PDF to email the client for sign-off.

Questions

The ones printers ask first

What do I get at the end?

A print PDF containing the pages you kept, in their job order, with your chosen bleed and crop marks. And a low-resolution proof PDF with PROOF across every page, showing the trimmed result for customer review. After finishing the design, optional Imposition produces a separate sheet PDF while keeping those original outputs available.

Can I put several copies of a design on one sheet?

Yes. Finish the design and any AI edits, process the job, then open Imposition. Choose one finished page to repeat at actual size. SRA3 is the default; A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and custom sheets are also available. Set margins, spacing, orientation and optional cutting guides, then preview and download the separate PDF. Each copy keeps the finished design's bleed. It repeats one design: it does not mix different designs, pair duplex fronts and backs, or arrange booklet pages.

Do I need Imposition if my printer already does it?

No. If your printer or RIP already arranges the sheets, you can send the original print PDF through that workflow. Use Print Prepper's Imposition when you need to prepare the repeats yourself, or want artwork preparation and sheet layout in the same software. Check the printer's paper size and printable area, and print the sheet PDF at actual size / 100% with scaling disabled.

What can I upload?

PDF, Illustrator .ai, TIFF, JPEG and PNG. Multi-page sources are split into one page each, and every page is cropped, padded and edited on its own before they come back as a single PDF.

How long is the free trial?

New signups get a 14-day free trial. Existing accounts keep their current trial end date. No payment card is required at initial signup. Check your account for the trial dates that apply to you.

What trim sizes can I use?

A0 through A7, US Letter, Legal and Tabloid, postcards at 4x6, 5x7 and 6x9, the 99x210mm DL flyer, business cards at 90x55mm, 89x51mm and a 70x28mm mini card, square cards and square formats, an 8x10 inch photo print, and 18x24 and 24x36 inch posters. If yours isn't in the list, type the millimetres. Portrait or landscape either way.

How does it add bleed?

Set the bleed in whole millimetres and choose Mirror the artwork or Extend edge colours. Mirror reflects existing artwork outward; Extend carries edge colours straight outward. Both reconstruct the band from available pixels, so inspect faces, lettering, borders and hairlines near the trim. Check the bleed in the print PDF: the soft proof shows the trimmed result. Bleed can be switched off independently of crop marks. Imposition uses the bleed already in the finished PDF.

What crop marks does it add, and can I change them?

You can include eight corner strokes around each design or switch crop marks off. Their length, offsets, weight and colour are fixed. The print PDF records a TrimBox and BleedBox; without bleed those boxes coincide, and with bleed and marks both off the PDF is trim-sized. Imposition removes the individual design's marks and can add cutting guides aligned to the trim edges outside the grid of repeats. There are no registration marks, colour bars or slug information.

What if the artwork is the wrong shape for the trim?

Pad it. That extends the canvas before you crop, so you have something to frame against instead of cutting into the design. The value is a percentage of the image's own dimension, from 1 to 100. Do one page or tick the box to do all of them. Applying it twice stacks a second bar on the first instead of replacing it, and every step is kept as a revision, so you can step back ten of them, redo, or restore a version you had abandoned.

Can I change the trim size after uploading?

Yes, from the crop screen. The crop box re-locks to the new ratio and you re-frame the page. No re-upload, and the file you sent in is never modified.

Does it turn a tiny image into a good one?

It gets you further than plain resampling does, but nothing puts back detail the camera never captured. Photographs under about two megapixels go through Real-ESRGAN, which invents plausible detail to fill the gap. That is fine on a landscape and risky on a product shot or on legal copy, where what the model invents becomes a defect you own. Line art and logos take a Lanczos path instead, because a model softens the edges you want kept hard. The proof PDF exists so you and the client agree on the result before it goes to press.

What can the AI actually change?

What's printed on the artwork: phone numbers, email addresses, names, taglines, background colours, the position or size of a logo. The suggestions it offers are content changes only, so it won't propose fixes to bleed, trim or crop marks. Those are the pipeline's job. Applying an edit does replace the whole page image at whatever size the model produced, which clears the crop and can change the resolution, which is why the app reports the DPI you ended up with. One page at a time, while the job is at the crop stage.

How long does an AI edit take, and can I undo it?

Usually 60 to 180 seconds. What comes back is a proposal and nothing lands on the page until you hit Apply, so you can discard it or refine it instead. The image from before the edit is kept, so one click puts it back. Because the model picks its own output size, the app measures what came back against your trim width and tells you the DPI you actually ended up with.

Do I have to use the AI editing?

No. The rest of the pipeline works exactly the same without it. When it is available, attempts count against your organisation's monthly allowance of 200 by default. A generation that fails still counts, because it cost the same API call as a good one, but discarding an attempt deletes it and gives you that one back.

What happens to my colour?

The pipeline works in RGB and hands back an RGB PDF, so if your printer needs a specific CMYK profile, that conversion is theirs to do. What Print Prepper does is read the source before rasterising and tell you what it found: spot colours, CMYK, intent. The loss shows up on the job instead of surprising you at the proof. Applying an AI edit discards those spot inks too, and the app says so before you commit.

Can the whole shop use it?

Yes. Signing up creates an organisation, and you invite the rest of the shop into it by email. Everyone in the organisation can run jobs. Roles cover the account itself, so an admin can invite people, change roles and remove someone the day they leave. Authenticator-app two-factor is built in, with backup codes, and an owner can reset it for someone who has lost their phone.

Prepare it right. Print it right.

Put through the file that's been sitting in your inbox since Tuesday.

14-day free trial for new signups. No card required.