What file issues are you still seeing from customers in 2026?

You'd think after all these years of automation, PDF standards, and better creative software, file prep would finally be a solved problem. It's not.

Curious what's actually landing in your queue lately. From what we hear across the industry, these are still the most common culprits:

• Missing bleed – artwork submitted at trim size with no bleed allowance, leading to white edges after cutting
• Low resolution images – web images (72 dpi) dropped into print files meant for 300 dpi output
• RGB instead of CMYK – colors that looked great on screen shifting unexpectedly once printed
• Fonts not embedded or outlined – files that open fine on the sender's machine but break or substitute fonts elsewhere
• Overprint and transparency issues – especially from older Illustrator or InDesign files with flattening problems
• Incorrect color profiles – or no profile at all, causing inconsistent output across devices
• Text too close to the trim edge – content that gets clipped after cutting because there was no safety margin

What's on your list? Anything above still your most common headache, or is there something else eating up your prepress time that we didn't mention?