If you are in the planning, survey, and design development business and use paper to develop your surveys and plans, then you know how important it is to have the correct dimensions for your print-outs. Many factors play into which size you use. While there are specific standards set, it’s not uncommon for you to have questions about what is suitable for your project.
Plan Printing
Plan Printing is the process of creating a printed copy of a plan. Plan printing is used in the construction industry to create documents such as blueprints, site plans, and other drawings. The process of plan printing can be done by hand or with the use of computer software.
There are many steps involved in the process of printing. The original drawing must be scanned or photographed to be printed on paper. Before printing, the scanned image will remove unwanted marks and lines from the original drawing. Once the image has been edited, it can be printed on large sheets of paper and assembled into individual pages for viewing.
Some construction plans may include photos or illustrations, text, and drawings. These additional images can also be added during the scanning process for inclusion in your final product.
Why Print Plans Online?
You can use a professional plan printing service when you need to print plans online. Plan printing services offer a range of products and services to meet your needs.
Architects and Engineers
Plan printing is an essential part of their business with architects and engineers. For this reason, they often outsource their plan printing work to a professional plan printing service, giving them more time to do what they do best — design and create client plans.
Specialist Contractors
Specialist contractors also benefit from using a professional plan printing service. These contractors may need to print out plans regularly, especially if they work on large projects such as bridges or buildings. They also use printed plans during construction so everyone involved in the project can access the same information at any time. This helps ensure that everyone is working toward the same goal and that no mistakes are made along the way.
Festivals, Production, and Event Management
Festivals, production companies, and event management companies often use printed plans for several reasons. For example, these companies may want to use printed plans for their purposes or for clients who require them to get involved in an event or production, such as an art show.
Format Requirements
Only printable data will be accepted and processed. When printing plans online, it is essential to understand the format requirements of the printer you are using. The following are some of the most common requirements for printing plans online:
Graphics and Images
The most common image format used in print plans is JPEG. The quality of the image will depend on the compression level and color palette used. Print plans should generally be saved as ‘High Quality’ JPEGs, with a 10-20% compression. This will ensure that the file size is small enough to upload easily but still has enough detail to produce a good quality print.
Colours / Colour mode
Most CAD software can save drawings in either RGB or CMYK color modes; however, it is advisable to use RGB for printing online as this is what most printers work with. If your file contains a mixture of CMYK and RGB colors, we recommend converting them all into RGB before uploading.
Bleed Area
The Bleed area is an extra 1/8″ around the edges of a printed piece. If you are printing on 8.5″ x 11″ paper and you want your image to bleed to the edge, then you will need to send in a document that has an 8.5″ x 11″ page with 1/8″ of bleed on all four sides. This ensures that when your printer cuts your sheet down to size, the image will print to the edge of the paper.
The bleed area ensures that your plans do not have any white areas showing on them when they are folded over. If you do not include bleed areas in your plans and want them to fold over properly, then you need to ensure that all your images are cropped within the margins set by Word or InDesign and cannot extend past them. This can be done by creating crop marks in InDesign or Word, so there is room for bleed areas and margins.
Data Save
If you choose this option, we will save your file in PDF format with a data save option attached to it. This allows us to print out copies of your plans anytime without resending them back and forth between our computers.
The data save option is excellent if you want to always have access to your plans online without paying for each copy or if you plan on sending these plans out for bids or contracts from other contractors or vendors who may need access at any time.
When you print plans online, there are additional costs you may not be aware of.
Some printers may charge extra for color printing, paper types, delivery options, and express delivery. Choose a service that can deliver them fast.
Alteration of Order
Some services allow you to customize your plan and add more pages or images to it, while others do not allow any changes once the order has been placed. This can be problematic, especially if you want to add additional information to your printable plan later.
Risk and Ownership of Products
Some printers will not ship the product until they receive payment, while others require full payment before shipping it to you. If you are ordering online, it is advisable to go through their terms and conditions first to know what to expect once an order has been placed with them.
Conclusion
It is clear that larger sizes, like A0, are used exclusively in commercial applications, while more common smaller sizes are naturally used for home printing. Whatever your needs, you should never feel obliged to go with the largest print size since even the most miniature A6 format can be scaled up to produce a large output. Ultimately, it is all about your requirements. Pick up your favorite format and go for it!