The page setup dialog box in many desktop publishing applications is the beginning for what is important and relevant to commercial offset printers. There are many considerations that we address here on this site for setting up your document pages. Some issues are more obvious than others, but all are equally as valid for preparing your digital file for press. Moreover, you can use this information to help you with making your press-ready PDF files. Some of the topics covered here are:

• Number of Pages - We explore how many pages to add to your document for various types of projects like saddle stitched booklets, multi-paneled brochures, and even business cards. We also discuss ganging multiple items on a page and even floating a single page item on a larger page.
• Page Size - Here you will discover how, and when, to adjust the size of your document pages for folding projects. Additionally, we discuss the actual page size to make your documents.
• Margins - We discuss when it would be appropriate to use margins to limit your page image area.
• Bleeds - There are many issues relating to page bleeds, and we cover many of them. There are examples for the many different techniques used by prepress and graphic professionals to create an appropriate bleed.

Return to File Considerations to see the all the file preparation topics.