Before you submit your file for brochure printing, there are a few guidelines that you must follow. You’re probably aware that low resolution would mean inferior quality for the printout, and that bleeds are important if you want to get an edge-to-edge brochure printout minus the fine white lines that weren’t captured by the cutter. But what about file name extensions? Among these three letter suffixes, the most popular ones include bmp, gif, png, eps, jpeg, tiff, and pdf. But not all of them are ideal for images and graphics intended for brochure printing.

Brochure Printing File Extensions

From the extensions mentioned, four are recommendable for producing hard copies of photos and graphics, and these are jpeg, eps, tiff and pdf, And for good reasons. Format gif is limited to a 256-color palette, png does not support the cmyk color space, and bmp has large file sizes and less favorable quality when it comes to photo printing.

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.jpeg or Joint Photograph Experts Group

This file type accommodates raster images, which include photos stored in the digital format. Notice that when you upload pictures from your digital camera, the image has the jpeg extension. The good thing about jpeg is that it has compression options so your file can have a smaller size for faster file transfer and you can also manipulate the extent of the compression, and hence, the minimize the distortion of your image.

The unfortunate part about jpeg is its unsuitability for repeated editing and saving. Each time a file is changed and saved, compression occurs. So by the time you have your final brochure design printed, the quality would have been altered a lot already.

If you’re still in the process of tweaking your design, use a different format first and then save the final file in jpeg.
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.tiff or Tagged Image File Format

TIFF handles scanned black and white images well and even photos. In fact, it is one of the most recommended formats for digital images in the printing industry. It also supports the use of different color spaces, specifically CMYK which is used in printing devices.

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.eps or Encapsulated PostScript

EPS has a property that quickly sets it apart from other file formats — it supports both vector and raster images. Hence, you can open and save the eps files in image-editing programs, as well as in graphics-based softwares such as Adobe Illustration. However, the file size is huge.

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.pdf or Portable Document Format

PDF has the advantage of eliminating the need to embed or link images and graphics to your file. Your pdf design file can be created in softwares that accommodates saving in pdf format. All the elements of your file are captured — images, unique typefaces and graphics, and they stay in place. Whatever the program you used to create the pdf file, it can be viewed through Acrobat Reader. Most printers highly recommend the use of this format.

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There is another file format that is widely accepted and this is psd or Photoshop Document. By default, when you work on Photoshop and save your file, the format used is psd. Both raster and vector files can be opened in Photoshop but this program is raster-based, unlike its fellow Adobe software Illustrator.

Remember that the file format you choose can significantly affect the quality of your prints. To make sure that the result of your brochure printing project is just as you had designed it, choose your format wisely.