How to make a print-ready Canva pdf

[Designed4Print]

A number of my clients use Canva, and whilst it used to annoy me, I've had to embrace it or potentially lose work. I found the easiest thing to do was to write a detailed instruction of how to create a 'print-ready' pdf from Canva that addresses most of the issues printers get. Is it perfect? Of course not. Canva is RGB only so the printer will have to convert the pdf, but if we can it the right size and with bleed if required, then it's got to be a good thing.

See my detailed instructions here: https://www.designed4print.com/canva

 

[hankscorpio]

Don't use Canva - but they have guidelines for setting up CMYK - utilising bleed - and other things.

We stopped accepting files made in Canva - told customers it wasn't suitable for print and if they wanted to use it it's not a problem - but it will probably not print very good quality.
And we were right - we sent the PDF to print - and it crashed the RIP, colours shifted to completely different colours, images were low-res, very poor quality logos.

After a while, they stopped - and started sending us the assets and we created the design pieces for them - based on what they designed in Canva.

We charged a little less - as we used their PDFs as templates and overlaid the images/etc. and created design files that were good-quality print.

In the end - Garbage In Garbage Out.
That's what we tell clients.
Pay a bit extra and get better quality - or don't.