Printing and Reprographics Editing and Proofreading Services

Print is the one part of a project that cannot be revised after delivery. Five thousand brochures arrive on a pallet, the client holds one up to the window, and the burgundy that looked right on a laptop is closer to brown. Somebody signed something. Whether the reprint is paid for by the printer or the client usually comes down to what a proof approval document said, and most of them say nothing useful at all.

We edit what printers, repro houses and print management firms produce — quotations and specification sheets, proof approval forms and sign-off documentation, colour management and expectation guidance, artwork supply and preflight requirements, file preparation guides for designers and clients, finishing and binding specifications, paper stock and substrate documentation, variable data and mailing specifications, large format and signage specifications, delivery, packing and storage terms, reprint, remake and tolerance policies, environmental and certification claims, and customer-facing guidance on lead times and schedule dependencies. Our editors work on the documents that decide who pays for the reprint.

The proof approval is the single document that determines liability on a print job, and it fails by asking for a signature without saying what is being agreed. A client ticking a box has typically checked the spelling and nothing else; they have not knowingly accepted a colour tolerance, a substrate, a trim variance or a finishing method. We write these so the form states precisely what the proof does and does not represent — a contract proof shows colour on a calibrated device and stock, a PDF on a client's monitor shows neither; so colour expectation is expressed as a tolerance in the terms the trade actually uses, with the plain-language consequence beside it, because a client who has been told that a rich burgundy will vary between the coated cover and the uncoated text section cannot be surprised by it; so the list of what the client is confirming is itemised — content, spelling, imposition, page order, quantity, stock, finish, delivery date — since a signature against an itemised list is worth something and one against "approved" is worth very little; so anything outside the proof's scope is named as excluded rather than left silent; and so the point of no return is stated as a time and a date after which changes incur a plate, setup or press charge quantified in advance. Printers whose approval forms read like this have shorter conversations when something goes wrong.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including client artwork, pricing and specifications. We are editors rather than print, colour or production specialists, and we offer no view on process, tolerances or liability. What we can do is make the sign-off say what is being signed off.