You’ve spent weeks, months, or even years perfecting your print project, and we’re honored that you trust FOREVER® to bring it to life. We hold ourselves to the highest standards—and we trust that the file you submit is exactly as you want it printed. This is because once your order is placed, we cannot edit to correct typos or adjust design elements. So here are some key steps to ensure your project meets your expectations:
Once you have gone through the entire list we recommend a final preview before ordering!
1. 💻Monitor Calibration
An uncalibrated monitor may display colors and lighting differently than they will appear once printed. For example, having too bright of a monitor can make images appear "brighter" due to the back-lighting the screen gives the image versus the front-lighting on physical projects. If you haven’t calibrated your monitor yet, your images could turn out darker or with unexpected hues.
🔗Learn how to calibrate your monitor here.
2. ✏️Images and Text Design
This is to ensure all images are high resolution so they print without any unexpected blurriness and your text has the proper grammar/spelling you are expecting.
All online Create & Print projects will automatically display a message if your photo is below the minimum pixel threshold. and underline text with a red squiggly line when actively editing text if it detects a misspelling.
For desktop Artisan projects, you can choose to turn on warning indicators so it will let you know when photos are low resolution and misspelled words (you can always add words to your personal dictionary so they won't be flagged).
A. Open the software and click your profile image in the upper right corner then choose "Settings".
B. In the pop-up window go to the Warning Levels tab.
C. Make sure at least one of the options here is set to either show "All" or "Critical" warnings.
3. 🔍Minding Your Margins
Check your Artisan project with the View ribbon using "Page" preview to see what is designed out to the very edge Bleed and avoid unwanted white borders or cut-off elements beyond the Safe Zone.
- Bleed: Your project is printed on an oversized sheet of paper that is then trimmed down to ensure edge-to-edge printing. Please extend background papers or images to the outer dashed line so we can account for the part being cut off. This is the very outside viewable area when in the View > Page option.
- Trim Line: This is the line the print shop aims for when trimming the page. Due to minor shifts that can happen during the production process, this line is only an estimate — the trim can happen anywhere between the Bleed and Safe lines to still be in standard tolerance.
- Safe Zone: Keep important text, photos, and design elements at least ¼” inside the Trim line to prevent them from being cut off. If you decide to put any text near the edge of this area we strongly advise to leave an additional approx. 1⁄8" for breathing room, just in case the trim ends up closer to the Safe line in the end result.
4. 📚Page Order
For projects with more than one page to design for, please start at the beginning and go through to verify everything is in the order you're expecting. Books are telling the story with the flow you want, calendars are in correct date order, etc.
Final Preview Before Ordering
We strongly suggest you preview your uploaded project in your account Print Projects area before ordering. This is because even if everything looked perfect in Artisan®, occasionally minor shifts can occur when files convert to the uneditable PDF. Or something can even go wrong during the upload process that not everything makes it over.
Reviewing your project online helps catch any misalignments and technical errors—or even last-minute typos!
Simply log in to your FOREVER.com account and hover over the person icon in the upper right (or click your profile photo/initials), then from the menu choose "Print Projects". Next, click on the thumbnail image for the project you wish to review. Then, if there is more than one page, use the bottom bar to review each individual page in the project — check again for everything from the list above to be absolutely sure you're getting what you expect for the final result.
If there's any design/spelling mistakes, or an error happened during the upload, please return to the editable project and make the proper corrections. Then upload it again and verify once more everything looks good before printing.