Services

Tips for Submission

File format

We only accept PDF files for printing. Word files will not be accepted. Before submitting your file please double check everything. Although we will have a general check of page numbers and image quality, we will not check for any spelling/grammar errors. If any thesis /pages have to be reprinted due to an error not duly our fault, this will result in additional charges.

Once you have completed the final check simply send the file attached to an email to printshop@abdn.ac.uk. Please include all your requirements e.g. binding style, copies required etc.

When we receive your thesis, we will check for any obvious errors, incorrect margins/page numbers etc., and email you with any corrections required and also a complete price prior to starting any work. No work will commence until we receive a reply from our customers.

Postage can also be arranged to either internal or external addresses. Internal mail will be delivered free of charge. External mail will incur additional costs, please enquire at time of submission.

Payment can be made either internal order (University of Aberdeen only), via telephone by credit/debit cards or in person at The Print Shop with cash, cheque or credit/debit cards. If you are submitting from abroad and would prefer not to call, we can also create an invoice which will be emailed to you and paid for via the Universities Online Payment Site.

Theses can also simply be handed in to The Print Shop already printed.

Margins

Please ensure your documents margins are at least 35mm on the binding, left, edge and 15mm on all other edges. For landscape pages the spine edge is the top of the page. See diagram below.

Registry Submission Guidelines

For more information regarding the specifications of thesis submission to the University of Aberdeen Registry please follow this link www.abdn.ac.uk/library/documents/guides/gen/qggen009.pdf.

An additional charge will be made should a thesis contain over-sized maps or require legits* to be inserted as follows (charges will be made per order not per copy/volume):

• Legits for 5 - 10 folds = £3.00
• Legits for 11 - 20 folds = £5.50
• Legits for 21 - 30 folds = £7.00
• Legits for 31 - 50 folds = £10.00
• Over 50 - consult with binder

*legits are a step which is placed in the spine to allow for the bulk in a folded page. 

There are a few guidelines to follow when submitting A3 fold out pages for thesis binding.

Firstly ensure the margins are 35mm on the spine edge and 15mm all other edges. Please see the images below for further details.

Secondly the pages must be folded correctly. The folds must sit in from the edge of the thesis.

On dissertation hand-in days the completion time for Comb & Ring and Metal style may be longer than 30 minutes. We offer walk-in service, no appointment necessary.

Comb & Ring Style - 30 minute service

• up to 50 sheets £3.00
• 51 to 100 sheets £4.00
• 101 to 150 sheets £5.00
• 151 to 220 sheets £6.00
• 221 to 310 sheets £7.00

Metal Style - 30 minute service

• up to 50 sheets £5.00
• 51 to 100 sheets £6.00
• 101 to 150 sheets £7.00
• 151 to 220 sheets £8.00
• 221 to 310 sheets £9.00

Card style - same day service if submitted by 10:00am

Colour card options - white, green, pink, blue or black

• up to 100 pages £7.00
• 101 to 250 pages £8.00
• 251 to 420 pages £10.00

The service times for Card Binding are:-

Samples of all the above styles are available for inspection at The Print Shop.

Prices

Printing of Thesis is additional to the prices below.

• Black & white printing 3p per page
• Colour 10p per page

Printing is subject to availability. On hand-in days, binding must take priority and the printing service may not be available.

We only accept PDF files for printing. Email your file to printshop@abdn.ac.uk

Hard Binding Thesis 

Colour options: black, navy, green, or wine.

1 week service (e.g. Submit Monday, collect following Monday)

1 week is the standard completion time. In exceptional circumstances or Bindery closures, it may take longer.
Please Thesis Binding Service Timetables tab.

• up to 2 copies £30.00 each
• 3 or more copies £27.00 each
  (based on a maximum of 420 pages. If a thesis is more than this, it will be bound as 2 volumes).

Prices based on 4 lines of title lettering (1 line = 38 characters including spaces and punctuation).

There is an additional charge of £3.50 per line in excess of these 4 lines.

University of Aberdeen gold block logo - £2.95 per volume.

Express services prices

If you require a faster service, we can offer a 2 day or 3 day service. Please note however that this services is at the discretion of the bindery and may not always available.

• 2 day £20.00 per volume additional to above binding prices
• 3 day £12.00 per volume additional to above binding prices

Additional Charges

• Pockets: £1.25 for standard plastic pocket
• Pockets with gusset = £10.50
• Cover with gusset = £30.50

An additional charge will also be incurred if a thesis contains over-sized maps which will involve legits to be inserted. Charges are made per order not per copy/volume. Charges as follows :

• Legits up to 10 folds = £3.00
• Legits for 11 - 19 folds = £5.50
• Legits for 10 - 30 folds = £7.00
• Legits for 31 - 50 folds = £10.00
• Over 50 - consult with binder

VIP Hard Binding (non-regulation)

VIP Hard Binding can not be used for thesis submission to the registry. This style of binding is ideal for reports or for copies of your dissertation/thesis to be presented as a gift to supervisors or family members.

Colour options - black or blue.

(1 hour service without lettering) with lettering same day if submitted by 10.30am.
Please see Thesis Binding Service Timetables (same as card binding) tab.

• up to 100 sheets £9.00
• 101 to 150 sheets £10.00
• 151 to 220 sheets £11.00
• 221 to 310 sheets £12.00

Lettering

£3.50 per line of gold text - 1 line of text contains 35 characters (includes spaces and punctuation).
We can also gold block the University of Aberdeen logo - £2.95.

If you are emailing your work to The Print Shop to be printed, the standard, express 3 or express 2 working day service will not be calculated until we have completed the printing of your thesis, not when we receive your email.

Standard Hard Binding Service

The following services are offered at the discretion of the Bindery

2 day and 3 day service available only if your work is deposited to The Print Shop before 10.00am (but is still at the discretion of the Bindery).

Express 2 day Hard Binding Service

Express 3 day Hard Binding Service

Service times for Card Binding

If thesis are submitted for card style binding after 2.30pm the completion time will be 3.30pm the following day.

We only accept PDF files for printing (one file only please!).

Please note on hand-in days binding takes priority and thesis printing is not always available.

80gsm paper

• A4 b/w printing - 6p per page (double sided 9p)
• A4 colour printing - 16p per page (double sided 31p)
• A3 b/w printing - 7p per page (double sided 11p)
• A3 colour printing - 17p per page (double sided 32p)

Add 1p to above prices for 100gsm paper.

A4 card - black and white printing - single sided only - 40p

A4 card - colour printing - single sided only 50p

Photo Quality Prints

Photo enlargements are available from Reprographics - reprographics@abdn.ac.uk

• A4 satin photo paper - £3
• A3 satin photo paper - £5
• please ask for larger sizes

Scanning

Scanning available up to A3 size available from Reprographics - reprographics@abdn.ac.uk

Our Reprographics department offer a poster printing service in a range of sizes from A4 - A0 and larger.

160gsm paper

Canvas

We also offer canvas poster printing which are perfect for transporting to conferences as these can be folded or rolled to be placed in your hand luggage.

We aim for a turnaround of two working days where possible. 

Submit either PowerPoint or PDF file by email to reprographics@abdn.ac.uk  or if your file is too large to email, please use th University fileshare service http://zendto.abdn.ac.uk . If you would like to talk to us please call 01224 272594.

Striking, custom banner stands to shout your message loud and clear. Perfect for exhibitions, presentations, and conferences. Roll up banner stands are an inexpensive, effective and portable interior display solution.

Our customers can either provide a file ready to print or work with our Design team who will create everything for you. If you prefer to supply a file, please ensure the page setup has the same dimensions as the size below and all images are at least 300dpi (images downloaded from the web have too low a resolution to print to a banner size).

Please send completed files to reprographics@abdn.ac.uk. If you would prefer assistance with the design of your banner, please contact uniprint@abdn.ac.uk.

The dimensions of your banner, where your artwork will appear, is 800 x 2000mm (when submitting a file please set the page setup to 800 x 2100mm as this will allow the banner to flow into the stand rather than seeing the fixtures. The bottom 100mm will not be visible and should just include background colour or image).

Costs per banner on a roll up stand is £85

Preparing a Poster

As we use bright white materials for printing, lighter shades of grey, in particular, can print much lighter than appears on your file. Please ensure any important information are darkened to ensure no loss. Unfortunately there is no specific percentage of tone that works best, depends on the specific file type etc. We would advise to use no less than 50% grey. If we receive a file that we think may have issues, we will inform you before proceeding.

Whether A0 or smaller, we suggest you keep fonts to the basics that are supplied with Microsoft/Mac programmes. This will avoid any mishaps of letters missing or changed because of font substitution or lack of recognition as with some symbol fonts. Please do not let this scare you off, we have had this only a couple of times out of the thousands of posters we have printed.

PowerPoint is the easiest programme to create a poster but we are capable of handling files created on Publisher, all Photoshop files, ie jpeg, tiff or psd and PDF files. Microsoft Word is not recommended for creating posters which have to be printed larger than A3.

The page setup, preferably, should be set to the size you want to print, to ensure no loss of quality. The table below gives the dimensions of various common paper sizes: -

Images can be scanned in any format or imported from computer files. Images need to be of a high resolution (at least 300dpi) for proper reproduction. Web images are not suitable, as they appear pixelated when magnified. This also happens with photographic backgrounds in PowerPoint.

PowerPoint is primarily a screen presentation program and errors can occur in reproduction, eg Data shifting around, colours not printing properly or scientific symbols misprinting. We do a visual check for errors and will contact you before printing, should any appear.

If you prepare your poster in PowerPoint, then graphs/tables from other programs should be saved as images and pasted into PowerPoint using the "paste special" command rather than "paste".

Avoiding problems

• Always take care when producing large scale documents. Mistakes can be costly and minor faults will show up dramatically.
• Be careful when placing logos or images onto posters. Normally small images that are increased in size will degrade in quality.
• Backgrounds should be inserted through 'insert...picture' then 'sent to back' and resized, rather than placed as a 'background' where it can appear blurred, as the original resolution is not retained.
• For alignment purposes, it is best to keep the number of text boxes to a minimum. The fewer text boxes there are to line up, the easier it will be.
• If possible do not use dark backgrounds. Often it makes text hard to see as well as making the poster longer to dry.
• Try to avoid using too many different fonts and font colours. Avoid red text on a blue background.
• Ensure that the text is big enough to read; it should never go below 8pt and this is only for subtext or references. Sometimes adding a shadow can make text stand out better when against conflicting background colours.

Submit files by email to reprographics@abdn.ac.uk

For additional assistance, IT Services provide workshops for students and staff

Why not attend one of the Training and Documentation (TaD) Team’s Creating posters using PowerPoint workshops.

PowerPoint is an effective tool for creating large format research posters. During this hands-on, tutor led workshop, you’ll learn how to:

• use guides and grids to help align text blocks and images
• set up poster size
• manage backgrounds
• insert text from Word and work with text boxes
• insert charts from Excel
• insert images

The tutors will also give you general design advice on layout, fonts and font size, and use of colour and visuals to help ensure your poster creates a lasting impression.

The TaD Team run regular workshops throughout the year. See the Course Booking System for forthcoming dates and to submit a booking request, or contact tad@abdn.ac.uk.

The Print Shop can laminate up to A3 size.

• A4 - £1.50 per sheet
• A3 - £2.50 per sheet

Larger format lamination is also available from our Reprographics Department.

• A2 - £4.00 per sheet
• A1 - £8.00 per sheet
• A0 - £15.00 per sheet

We can laminate longer lengths but are restricted to a width of 90cm. Prices are available on request.

The University of Aberdeen's collection of no fewer than 45,000 photographic glass plates, which date from 1853 to 1908, shows what was essentially the stock in trade of George Washington Wilson & Co. They portray a variety of late Victorian and Edwardian life, not only in Britain but in the colonial townships of South Africa and Australia, as well as the western Mediterranean.

The University's collection has been largely unexploited. It has a great historical and sociological value and provides a fresh viewpoint on the life and landscape of late Victoria days.

If you would like to view all the images, they are available at www.abdn.ac.uk/historic/gww/.

Please see below for details how to order a print of any of the images.

To Order Prints Please Contact:
Reprographics
Uniprint
23 St. Machar Drive
Aberdeen, AB24 3RY

Tel: +44 (0)1224 272594
Email: reprographics@abdn.ac.uk

Copyright in the prints rests with Aberdeen University Library, and permission to reproduce any print supplied must be obtained. A reproduction fee is normally charged for any print published. The prices below are exclusive of this fee.

Prices include VAT; postage and packing is additional.

Unless otherwise requested we will use our own discretion on which area should be printed from the negative, as negative area does not always match the print area.

If you require specific areas on the right or left hand side of the print, this must be indicated at time of ordering.

Prints for sale!

A4 prints £ 9.99
A3 prints £12.99
(framed prints are available, please ask for further details)

To place an order either visit The Print Shop at 23 St. Machar Drive or contact: -
Email: reprographics@abdn.ac.uk     Tel: (01224) 272594