Verify color mode, ink separations, bleed, resolution, and print readiness — in seconds.
Upload any PDF and instantly know if it's ready for print — no Acrobat or prepress expertise required. Download a professional PDF report to share with your team.
Checks if your file uses CMYK (print ink colors) or RGB (screen colors). RGB files will print with shifted, dull colors and must be converted before going to press.
Identifies pre-mixed inks like Pantone and GCMI with visual color swatches. Verify your brand colors match the specification before printing.
Checks if artwork extends past the cut line. Without bleed, you risk thin white edges where the cutting blade was slightly off.
Measures the DPI of every embedded image. Print needs 300 DPI minimum — anything lower will appear blurry and pixelated on the final product.
Verifies every font is packed inside the PDF. Missing fonts get substituted by the printer, breaking your typography and layout.
Measures total ink at the heaviest point (C+M+Y+K). Too much ink causes smearing, slow drying, and set-off — especially on flexo and corrugated.
Detects if the file conforms to PDF/X — the ISO standard that guarantees print compatibility. Like a quality seal for your print file.
Lists every ink plate including process (CMYK), spot colors, and technical layers like dieline, crease, and dimension marks.
Flags comments, sticky notes, and form fields that have no place in a print file. Left in by accident, they can actually print.
Detects strokes thinner than 0.25pt that may vanish on press. The printing plate simply can't reproduce lines that thin.
Traces overprint settings through actual drawing operations. White objects with overprint enabled will disappear when printed — a costly and common mistake.
Flags text and important content within 3mm of the trim edge. Anything too close to the cut line risks being clipped during finishing.
Checks for embedded ICC profiles and Output Intents that tell the printer exactly how to reproduce your colors on a specific paper and press combination.
Inspects PDF structure for bloat, encryption, and orphaned objects that can cause RIP errors or slow processing at the print shop.
Your screen displays colors using RGB (Red, Green, Blue) — mixing light. Printers use CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) — mixing ink. These are fundamentally different systems. If you send an RGB file to a printer, it has to guess how to convert screen colors into ink, and the result almost always looks duller and shifted. Always ensure your print files are in CMYK before sending to press.
Instead of mixing CMYK inks to approximate a color, spot colors use a specific pre-mixed ink for an exact match. Pantone is the universal system used across commercial printing. GCMI is the standard for corrugated (cardboard box) and flexographic printing. Spot colors guarantee brand consistency — your red will be exactly the same red on every box, every time.
When printed sheets are cut to final size, the cutting blade isn't perfectly precise — it can shift by a fraction of a millimeter. Bleed is extra artwork that extends beyond the cut line (usually 3mm / 0.125" on each side) so that if the cut is slightly off, you still see color to the edge instead of a white strip. Without bleed, your printed piece may have unsightly white borders.
DPI stands for "dots per inch" — how many tiny dots of detail exist in each inch of an image. For high-quality print, you need at least 300 DPI. Images at 150 DPI will look noticeably soft, and anything below 100 DPI will appear blurry and pixelated. Note that an image that looks sharp on screen (typically displayed at 72 DPI) may be far too low resolution for print.
When a designer uses a font like "Helvetica Neue Bold" in a layout, the PDF needs to contain that font's data inside it. If the font isn't embedded, the printer's system won't have it and will substitute a different font — your text will look wrong, character spacing will change, and the design breaks. Embedding ensures the PDF looks identical on every machine that opens it.
Total Ink Coverage (TIC) is the sum of all ink percentages at a single point — for example, a rich black might be C:60 M:40 Y:40 K:100 = 240%. Every printing process has a maximum. Offset printing typically allows up to 340%. Flexographic printing on corrugated cardboard is usually limited to 240-280%. Exceed the limit and the ink can't dry fast enough — it smears, sticks to adjacent sheets, or bleeds through the substrate.
PDF/X is an ISO standard specifically designed for print production. A PDF/X file guarantees that fonts are embedded, colors are properly defined, images are at sufficient resolution, and no screen-only elements (like transparency or RGB images) exist. While a regular PDF may still print correctly, PDF/X eliminates ambiguity. Most professional printers prefer or require PDF/X files.
In packaging, a PDF contains more than just the visible artwork. It includes technical layers that tell machines what to do: a dieline shows where to cut, crease/score lines show where to fold, and dimension layers contain measurements. These are defined as special color channels (separations) in the PDF — they aren't printed as part of the artwork but are essential for manufacturing. This tool identifies all of them.
Yes. Your PDF is processed entirely on the server and deleted immediately after analysis. We do not store, share, or retain your files. The analysis happens in seconds and the file is removed from memory as soon as the results are returned to your browser.
Overprint tells the printer to print one ink on top of another instead of knocking out (removing) the ink underneath. This is standard for black text — it prevents white halos from slight misregistration. But when overprint is accidentally left on white or light-colored objects, those objects become invisible because they print "on top of" nothing. This tool traces overprint settings through the actual drawing operations to catch this specific, costly mistake.
The safe zone is the area at least 3mm inside the trim edge where important content like text and logos should stay. Anything closer to the edge risks being partially cut off during finishing. This check scans every text block and flags elements that are dangerously close to the trim line.
An ICC profile is a tag inside the PDF that tells the printer how to interpret colors for a specific paper and press combination. For example, "Coated FOGRA39" means the file was designed for coated paper on a European offset press. Without this tag, the printer has to guess — which can lead to color shifts and reprints. Note: spot color and pure CMYK workflows don't always require an ICC profile.
Yes. After the analysis completes, click the "Download Report as PDF" button at the bottom of the results. You'll get a professionally formatted report with the verdict, all check results, font details, page dimensions, and ink coverage — ready to share with your designer, printer, or client.
Yes. We provide a public API for integrating PDF preflight checks into your own tools and workflows. Visit /docs for interactive Swagger documentation. Endpoints include full analysis, lightweight summary, and downloadable PDF report generation.
This tool catches the most common print-readiness issues automatically and is a great first line of defense. However, a full prepress workflow may also include trapping, imposition, color proofing, and substrate-specific adjustments that require specialized software and human expertise. Think of this as a fast, reliable pre-check that catches problems before they reach your prepress team.
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