Common Printing Problems & Troubleshooting
(Page Edges)
Read this page completely before purchasing an edge design from us.
We believe in honesty & transparency. This technique is unique and may not be for everyone, so please take note of the following issues we’ve encountered.
Refunds will not be offered for the following issues. By purchasing from us, you assume responsibility for understanding the possible outcomes of this technique.
General Printing Issues:
Print-on-demand publishing is not nearly as precise as most authors would like. Whether your book is super plain or a deluxe special edition, these are some common problems you may face:
Glue on covers, lamination problems, smashed corners, scratched or dented covers, dust jackets cut or folded poorly, off-center covers, ink streaks on pages, dirty page edges, bent covers/pages, bound upside-down, wrong book bound in your cover, missing/additional pages, too much or too little trimmed off edges, pages trimmed off-center, pages inserted at an angle, glue on pages, pages not squared before trimming/binding, not properly glued (pages falling out or hardback binding iffy), and more…
It can be daunting. Always always inspect your book shipments when you get them, and make timely claims with the printers for refunds or replacements so you don’t miss the window to do so.
Page Edge Design Printing Issues:
Along with the above list, here are some problems (specific to our embedded edges process) that we’ve come across after working on hundreds of books, and then suggestions on how to handle them:
Feathering—design is fuzzy because of page misalignment The most common issue we see is ‘feathering.’ In most cases, it’s fairly subtle. This is a sign your printer didn’t align the pages squarely before cutting and binding them. The amount of care they have about page alignment is the equivalent of their canned ‘we consider books with rips, glue smears, and scratches on them saleable’ response.
Troubleshooting Unfortunately, not much can be done about this; for the most part, this is an assumed risk. Unless the page shift was drastic enough to fall outside of their allowable margin of error, your printer will not consider this a misprint. Depending on your printer, the page will need to have shifted more than .1875" or .25" to be considered a misprint qualifying for refund or replacement. If you do find the page shift to be significant enough to qualify for a refund or replacement, see our suggested verbiage lower on this page.
Overzealous Trimming—missing inked design on the page altogether (entire pages missing the design, not just a partial cut off)
Troubleshooting This should never happen. As the most experienced embedded edge designer, we ensure our work should never be fully trimmed off during manufacturing. If a page that should have ink in the margins is completely missing it, your printer trimmed too much, and you are eligible for a refund or replacement from your printer. We offer 'standard' and 'wide' graphic slices, and while both are safe for all printers, you may want to opt for the wide option to allow for more wiggle room here. The premade instant-download edges in our shop already include both options for maximum flexibility. We also recommend checking to see if pages that are missing the inked design entirely will easily fall out. From our experience, this means the printer didn’t cut and bind the book properly, and those pages would likely fall out when a reader flipped through their book anyway. See our suggested verbiage lower on this page regarding refund/replacement requests.
Insufficient Trimming—white paper extending beyond where it should, not exposing the inked edges This means your printer trimmed the book incorrectly.
Troubleshooting This should never happen. Not only to our embedded edges, but to any image that fills the bleed zone. See our suggested verbiage lower on this page.
Crooked Trimming—a portion of the edge design is trimmed off On rare occasions, printers may cut off a portion of the edge design. When this happens, it’s a sign they cut and bound the pages on an angle, cutting the trim area too much in one section.
Troubleshooting If your edge appears chopped off like the example we have linked, you qualify for a refund or replacement from your printer. See our suggested verbiage lower on this page.
Rough Cuts—
Troubleshooting If your edge appears chopped off like the example we have linked, you qualify for a refund or replacement from your printer. See our suggested verbiage lower on this page.
KDP-Specific Issues: Each of these concerns are extremely rare to come across, and we’ve ONLY had these problems with KDP.
File will not load into previewer (times out after an hour and says there’s an unspecified error) Despite countless hours and attempts to solve this problem, there isn't a clear-cut cause or solution. More likely than not, this is a compounding error, usually associated with a font. The issue is there because of something in your formatting software, but it's a hidden glitch that only becomes problematic when KDP's previewer tool triggers a more extensive review of your document because of the bleed.
Troubleshooting Your best bet to resolve this would be to reprocess/regenerate/reexport your PDF and reapply your edges. That may or may not work, and we've never had much success with KDP customer service on this. Sometimes, after days of trial and error, we've been able to resolve the issue, but that's not always the case. In very rare cases, the only option would be to use a different printer since KDP is the only company that struggles with this.
Phantom Glitch—the inked design is incomplete on only a handful of pages On very rare occasions, KDP has a conversion error we’re calling a ‘phantom glitch.’ We don’t know the cause of this. The glitch doesn’t flag or even show in KDP’s print previewer, though it can be found if you know where to look for it in their PDF digital proofs. This is part of why we always recommend ordering printed proofs before publication.
Troubleshooting First, you'll need to confirm that this error isn't one of the other issues mentioned here. This specific error presents as a small but distinct bald zone in the edge pattern. Compare your PDF to what was actually printed on the proof copy. Compare those to the PDF preview and the previewer tool KDP has. Once you've determined the missing chunk of the pattern is there in the PDF we provided you and in KDP's previewer, but it disappeared in the KDP PDF and your printed book, reach out to us. We’ve developed a workaround to force the edge to print properly once we know a manuscript is experiencing this problem. Contact us if you experience this problem, and we’ll tweak it as needed.
Edge design graphic slices 'mimic production marks' or are 'out of range' On less than a handful of occasions (out of hundreds of books), KDP has thrown a fit over graphics in the margins, blaming them for misprints because they ‘mimic production marks’ and they ‘confuse the printing equipment.’ KDP pulled these authors' books until the edges were removed.
Troubleshooting We've gone to bat for the few authors this has happened to, and after extensive reviews and communication, it always boils down to one thing: KDP has grossly insufficient customer service training. There's not much we can do to fix incompetence on KDP's part. This isn't a file issue. This isn't an equipment or programming issue. It doesn't happen at any other printer, and there's no rhyme or reason as to why they pull these books and give the nonsense reasons they do, especially because they had already accepted the files in some cases. We could explain the logistics of why this is a KDP error ad nauseam, but in short, the reasons they give for this 'error' are completely false. i.e. "the images in the margins on pages 9, 121-126, and 214 are out of range" Intimately aware of our proprietary process, we can verify with absolute certainty that those page numbers do not correlate in a way that could be problematic. Ever. You'll point out that there are 'dashes' in the margins on ALL pages and that there's nothing unique about the ones they quoted. They'll come back and say different (also nonsensical) pages are actually the problem. You'll make a valid, logical point. They'll reply by saying it's actually some other random problem. The only way out of this is to have the patience of a saint as you try to explain simple concepts to undertrained staff, including supervisors, and hope they finally get it and push your PDF for approval. You may also try to get around the problem by tricks like unpublishing/republishing, using a different ISBN, or something else that may trigger a new review, but we have no proof that will work. If worse comes to worst, you may need to use a different printer. If you're unsure whether a random error they're citing is actually some kind of glitch with your PDF or just their training issues, you can email us and we'd be happy to review it for you.
China-Based Printer Issue: This may be more common for print runs in general (non POD printing), but we’ve only experienced this problem with Chinese printers thus far.
Wavy/Distorted Edge Before producing a print run, some printers will assemble a sample book and send you pictures/video of your book to approve. Unfortunately, these sample books are sometimes hand-bound, meaning the binding simply isn’t as tight as when it’s done on the machinery. This may lead to a misleading and disheartening preview of our design on your book, despite the final machine-produced books being perfectly fine.
Troubleshooting If the preview you get sent looks off, feel free to reach out to us to have us review what they’ve sent to see if it's just the hand-binding that's causing the distortion, or if other factors are at play.
Common concerns that are *NOT* file/printer errors:
Top/Bottom 'Lip' Full top-to-bottom designs will inherently have a lip on the top and bottom edges. If you don't like this aesthetic, you'll need to be clear about that when designing your long edge so it either doesn't have any ink near the very top and bottom of the long edge or by having it be a solid color that abuts a solid color on the top and bottom for a smooth transition.
Design printed in grayscale when it should have been in color For Vellum users, you need to make sure your Vellum settings are on color, not grayscale. For all authors, you need to ensure you select color printing when setting up your book file with the printer. If not, they will convert it into a grayscale version.
Incorrect Margins/Bleed Some printers require that you select bleed when setting up your books (i.e. KDP), though other printers (i.e. IngramSpark) do not. Ensure that if it's an option during setup, you have selected bleed. Bleed is always required for this edge technique.
Additional Considerations
Batch Tendencies Whether your order 2 or 20 copies of your book, if they're purchased in the same order, they're likely to be printed in the same batch, one right after another. This means that all those books will turn out similar. You're at the mercy of the machinery and its calibration at any given time. If your initial proof order has 5 books that all look shoddy, it's not at all surprising they share the same blemishes. But that doesn't mean the next purchase of 1 book or 100 books won't arrive in pristine condition. Print-on-demand quality is extremely hit-or-miss.
Playing it Safe There are risks in publishing, especially with print-on-demand publishing. If you don’t want to assume the risk that printers are going to screw up your special touches, what would we recommend? —Formatting upgrades only. Messing with the edges/margins opens the door for one more thing the printer can screw up. You can always play it safe by not adding our specialty edges and instead add extra touches to your book through formatting. —Simple solid/ombre edges. Without a complex pattern, there are not nearly as many variables for the printer to screw up. These are also trendy options and are often more affordable than our custom edge designs, too! —Strategic page edge designs. We always try to give your design the best possible chance we can, from the width the graphic slices are on the edge of the page, to the contrast of colors & shades when considering the desaturation of this technique. Fine lines can also be tricky, and as we learn and experiment, we tweak our technique to make it as great as it can be.