NCR Artwork & Design Guide
NCR is not like printing a brochure. The stock is thinner, the surface is coated to react to pressure rather than to hold ink beautifully, and the finished item gets written on by hand in conditions nobody designed for. A layout that looks immaculate on screen can produce a form that is awkward to complete and illegible once copied.
This guide covers the file specification first, then the design decisions that actually determine whether your form works.
File specification
• Format: PDF, press-ready
• Size: finished size, with 3mm bleed on all four edges
• Marks: trim marks, offset from the bleed
• Safe margin: keep critical content at least 5mm inside the trim
• Pages: one page per printed side, in order — front then back
• Colour: CMYK for full colour, or 100% K for single colour black
• Images: 300dpi at final size
• Fonts: embedded or outlined
Please don't impose the file or supply it as spreads — we impose to our own sheet layout, and a pre-imposed file usually has to be taken apart again.
Download our A4 template to work over if it helps.
Design for a pen, not a screen
The single most common problem we see is lines and boxes that are too small to write in. Handwriting is bigger than type. As a working rule, allow 8mm of vertical space for any line someone writes on, and 10mm if the information is long — an address, a description of work. Boxes for initials or ticks can be smaller; boxes for names and signatures should not be.
Leave a proper signature area. A signature needs roughly 60 x 15mm to be given without being cramped, and a cramped signature line is the field most often left blank.
What reproduces well on NCR — and what doesn't
NCR stock is lightweight and absorbent compared with a coated brochure paper, so ink spreads very slightly. That has three practical consequences.
Fine reversed-out type fails. White text out of a dark panel fills in. If you want a reversed header, keep it bold and at least 9pt — and better still, use a tint panel with dark text over it instead.
Heavy solid areas are best avoided. Large flood-filled blocks of ink can cause the sheet to cockle slightly and make the pad less flat. A 10-20% tint reads as a panel just as clearly and behaves far better.
Hairlines disappear. Keep rules at 0.25pt minimum, and 0.5pt where the line is something people write on.
Light tints are your friend generally. A 10% grey behind alternating table rows makes a form far easier to complete and adds nothing to the cost on a full colour job.
Think about the copy, not just the top sheet
Everything you print appears on every part, but the handwriting is what has to travel. Two things follow.
Put the fields people write in where the pressure is best supported — away from the very head of the pad, where the glue block sits, and away from the extreme foot where the sheet can lift.
If a section is for office use only and shouldn't be filled in by the customer, say so on the form rather than relying on layout to imply it. On a copy, subtle visual hierarchy gets lost.
Different wording on each part
Most multi-part forms want the parts labelled — Customer Copy, Workshop Copy, Office Copy, or Driver's Copy. This is one of the most useful things you can do for the people using the form, and it costs nothing on a black-only job.
To set it up, supply a separate page for each part and tell us the order, top to bottom. If every part is identical apart from that label, say so and send the label variations — we'll handle the rest.
Sequential numbering
If you are having sets numbered, leave the numbering position clear in your artwork. The number is added as a separate operation, so it must not land on top of a rule, a tint panel or your logo.
Top right is conventional and reads well. Allow roughly 30 x 8mm of clear space, at least 10mm in from the trim. Tell us your start number when you order, and if you reorder we can continue the sequence from where the last batch finished so numbers never repeat across batches.
Drilled holes
If you are having 2 or 4 holes drilled for filing, keep content well clear of the binding edge — allow 15mm rather than the usual 5mm safe margin on that edge. Standard filing holes sit 12mm in from the edge, so anything closer than that is going to lose a chunk of itself.
Designing the reverse
The reverse is where terms and conditions, guidance notes or a completion checklist usually go. Printing on it does not affect how the copy transfers, so use it. Set terms at 7pt or larger — small enough to fit, large enough to be enforceable in practice.
If you'd rather we designed it
Our in-house designers set up NCR forms regularly, and a form that has been laid out by somebody who knows how it gets used is a noticeably better tool. We charge £35 per hour and will supply drafts for approval before anything goes to press. Most single-sided forms take an hour or two.
Send what you have — even a photograph of the pad you have been using for years — to sales@printstudioscotland.com or call 0141 237 1924.
Related guides
The complete NCR buying guide • 2 part vs 3 part • pads vs books • form sizes • browse the full range