Do you require some custom printed NCR pads and books? No problem! At NCR Invoice Pads, we offer a premium NCR printing service for all your NCR needs. If you’re ready to get started and begin creating your NCR product, read on to discover our top tips for creating the graphic for NCR printing!
Probably the most important part of any design, no matter whether it be a carbonless form order or a business card, is ensuring your project reflects your company’s brand and tone. For example, if you are an electrician, but you have a layout that fits more closely with a milkshake shop, you’re going to quickly confuse your clients. Make it easy on them and provide them with stationery that perfectly reflects your business.
In regards to our sets or books, logos are typically placed at the top of the document in either corner or possibly, in the centre. This is not to say your emblem can’t go somewhere else, it’s position is totally up to you. Logos should be of suitable resolution, however, and as is the case in most situations, we recommend 300dpi.
As well as your logo, you should also include your company’s contact details for your business are highly recommended. You should include your company’s telephone, email address, business address, company registration and VAT no. If you’re operating a VAT-registered business, it is a legal requirement that your VAT no. is on all of your custom stationery and communications with clients.
When you include your company details like this, you ensure your customers have all the important details they need to get in touch with you effortlessly. Whether it’s a question about their order or service or simply to approach you about purchasing something entirely new, it makes contacting you painless for the customer – and helps to encourage them to contact you for further help!
While it may seem daft to mention adding things like your trademark and contact information, you would be surprised how easy it is to forget them. It’s important to sit back and think logically about what information needs to be presented to your customer, including what information needs to be collected. This will save you the cost of reprinting with smaller amendments down the line.
So now you have all the information you need to give and collect on your form, it’s now time to think about the flow. What do we mean by flow? Simply the way you present this information so that it is easy to read and fill in. For example, you will want to present form details such as a customer’s contact information first, before leaving room for their order or service below. Ultimately, think about the order in which you typically fill in your invoices or receipts and follow that.
We have seen some not-so-fantastic NCR designs in our time, some of which have spread out linked information across the sheet meaning the products were not optimised for their use. Staff and customers using could easily find themselves lost on the form, or skipping important sections because they could not understand the layout. This not only looks unprofessional, but will slow down the process, and at the end of the day, time is money!
Empty space (not the kind Brian Cox would talk about) within the structure of the forms is something that is often overlooked. It is especially important when you start with your NCR not to overload it with information but also not to leave so much empty space that there are major gaps. If you find yourself with too much, or not enough information, to fill the template, you can always look to change the dimensions. Do not forget we offer a variety of sizes, including A4, A5, A6 and DL – all available as duplicates or triplicates with free UK delivery.
Now we have talked about the basics and the importance of flow when laying out a form, we will look at the other aspects to consider to ensure that your NCR order is handled as swiftly as possible. There are several slight differences in the finishing options between our no carbon books and forms. In the technical jargon below, we will highlight this for each of the products we offer. This is to ensure that your template meets our specifications, and don’t worry if you’re still unsure we can help you provide a print ready PDF. If you get stuck please contact us; we would be more than happy to help!
For more information about different printing options, such as whether you want to have your No-Carbon Required digitally or Offset printing, you can read about Offset printing techniques for NCR in this article we wrote. We even wrote an article about Comparing offset NCR and Quality control in offset NCR too. Our writers sure have been busy!
Each of the products we offer come with blueprint guideline files on their page. Feel free to click and download these to help you set up your artwork correctly. As with most items, laying out your artwork with the correct bleeds and safe zones is super important when you are creating forms, no matter if it’s an invoice, receipt, quote or something else.
We require a 5mm safe area zone on each margin. Our templates are set up to be the correct size and highlight the area if drilled holes are required.
Books do need an extra safe area to allow for perforation – you read more about this in the next section. Our book-specific guidelines are set up to be the correct size and highlight the borders if drilling is needed.
All of our guides contain a safe area which is 5mm. This means you will need to keep content text and graphics within the safe zone. You should aim to identify the safe area as an unprintable area. This ensures no important text or elements get trimmed off during the production process.
We use different methods to ensure that we offer you the best pricing for your needs. We use digital machinery for shorter runs and litho machinery for larger volume orders. With this in mind, there are some different options to consider
Bleeding off the finished page size on our shorter digital runs is not possible as we use RA3 sheets. This is to ensure we can offer great pricing, not only on our high volume but also in the short run. Bleed on our high volume orders should be 3mm on all edges.
We only offer perforation on our no-carbon books at this time. We do not offer this on our pads or sets as they are not needed.
Perforation can be on either the long edge or the short edge of the book.
Books perforated on the Long edge: If Binding on the long edge, allow 15mm + additional 5mm clear zone = 20mm
Books perforated on the Short Edge: If Binding at the short edge, allow 15mm + additional 5mm clear zone = 20mm
All sheets in the book will be perforated at 15mm and require an additional 5mm clear zone (total 20mm clear zone) at the top or left edge depending on which binding edge you need.
Remember all of our pads, sets and books are supplied with loose writing shields.
You should always avoid using the text below 6pt, since this is very small! All fonts should be converted into outlines/paths. This applies to all our products, not just NCR!
The minimum line stroke is 0.5pt. Remember, the lines are there for a reason so make sure they can be seen.
NCR paper is thinner than typical leaflet paper due to the nature of how it works. That said, we still offer high-quality 80gsm NCR uncoated paper as standard, and on our higher runs because it can be more cost-effective, we offer pricing on 60gsm.
With this in mind, you should avoid style issues with large areas of solid ink. Doing so can cause issues for steps within the production process such as collating the coloured sheets. It’s easier if you remember what you are creating (typically a form and not a full advertising leaflet or brochure). Remember form and function!
All of our products are available in 2 options, full colour or you can choose to have them in black and white. Typically they are supplied with 50 sets in each.
If you are just using black, please ensure you leave it as 100% Black when drafting up your product.
We know some of you would love the idea of having coloured boxes, however, it is worth bearing in mind that this can interfere with the function of NCR if the saturation is too high. If you insist on having tinted areas to be written on, try and keep the shaded areas between 5-8%.
An ideal location to add terms and conditions and other important “fine print” is on the back of your no carbon required form. It is advised to tint or shade the content to a maximum of 60% which reduces any show-through from the front of the document. Remember to keep any guides and safe areas in mind when outlining your reverse.
As with most printed items, our NCR stationery is printed in CMYK so it is best to convert all colours to process CMYK for your order. Nevertheless, we may be able to quote for higher runs of Pantone colour (above 20 pads).
It is best to make sure that all elements using transparency have their layers flattened this will ensure there are no issues.
If you are planning to create your 2 part or 3 part NCR with numbers on, it is best to supply an additional file showing the position. If you do not do this, then potentially it could be printed on all copies. You can let us know the starting point and position on the product page before adding this to your cart.
Numbering will be done in (black 16pt in Gillroy Extra Bold).
Please supply 2 files with 1 showing the numbering position.
If you want to read more about what numbering is and how it works we wrote What is Sequential Numbering printing? on our blog. Now onto the final few notes for planning your setup!
The holes are 6mm in diameter. We offer this in two options: 4 holes and 2 holes. It is best not to print anything near these either to ensure the document stays functional.
We offer a choice of 4 colours for the duplicate parts, The top is always white. Copy colours can be Pink, Yellow, Blue or Green. The only rule we have is that you can’t have the same colour for each copy part. For example, if you wanted a 3-part book, the top would be white as mentioned while the other copies could be.. i.e:
Pink, Yellow
Yellow, Pink
Yellow, Blue
Pink, Blue etc
But not PINK, PINK OR YELLOW, YELLOW.
Throughout this article, we have tried to answer some of the most common questions that we get asked regarding our products.
