Sales Sheet Printing Key Terms

Get to know the terms you'll need when ordering sales sheet printing

A sales sheet is a single sheet of paper summarizing your product or products and describing why someone should buy them. Use it to introduce potential customers to your product line in a setting where a longer brochure or catalog might not work as well.

Online printing companies make it easy to order a printed sales sheet without leaving your desk chair, but you need to know some printing terms to be successful. You might want your sales sheet to have a bleed, or you may want to print it with CMYK color. You need to decide what resolution of graphic file to send, what type of paper stock to print it on and what folding option you want. You may have to sign off on an electronic proof.

Bleed or full bleed

A bleed allows the printed image to go right up to the edge of the paper during printing. Printers achieve this by printing on larger paper and then trimming off the edge, and they often charge more for this feature. A full bleed means it bleeds on all sides, whereas a bleed otherwise may just refer to one or two edges.

Full color or CMYK color

Full color means you will be able to have pretty much any color from the rainbow on your sale sheet. Printers achieve this by printing four colors--cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK)--that then mix to make all of the colors you could wish for. Computer screens show RGB colors, which mix and make the same approximate colors, but aren't the same thing as CMYK.

Dots per inch (DPI)

Anything printed on a laser or inkjet printer has a description detailing how many dots per inch (DPI) print on the paper. You can also measure images in DPI. You need to submit a high-resolution image of at least 300 DPI in order to get good results for a printed sales sheet, even if the printer they print it on doesn't print at that high of a resolution.

Text stock paper

Printers offer many different weights and types of paper that they print documents on. Companies generally print sales sheets on text stock paper, which is a sturdy but lightweight paper.

Folding Options

You can fold paper in any number of ways, but printers use standard folding options, because companies often use folding machines to fold quantities of documents. You can get your sales sheet folded in half or in several types of folds that result in three panels on each side of the sheet. Three fold panels allow you to fit your document inside a number ten envelope for mailing.

Electronic proof

An electronic proof is a picture of what your printed sales sheet will look like. Many online printing firms present their customers with an electronic proof that they can look at either on the web or attached to an email. This is the customer's last chance to make any changes before printing.

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