Please read these terms of business. They are fair and reasonable and pretty much what is prevailing in our section of the print marketplace.

General Terms :- Our terms of trading are very simple. We work to the standards of quality and service set out below and this is what you can expect when placing your order with us. Should we fail to meet these standards through error or omission on our part then we will reprint your job free of charge on return of all the faulty goods. In the event that for some reason we are unable to reprint your job to our and your satisfaction we reserve the right to return any money paid and to consider the contract null and void without penalty. We consider it your responsibility to check that any goods we supply are suitable for their intended purpose before they are used. We accept no responsibility for consequential loss, however caused. Under all circumstances our liability to you or any third parties shall be limited to the invoiced value of any faulty goods. We accept no liability under any circumstances for any loss or damage to you or any third party arising from the use of materials supplied by us.

Payment:- We require full payment on ordering orders of below £120. On orders of more than £120 we will accept 50% deposit on ordering and the balance payable prior to despatch. Until such payment is received we will not consider any job details you send to us to constitute an order and we reserve the right not to act upon any instructions you may have given us if payment has not been received.

Credit Accounts:- We regret that we can no longer offer credit accounts.

Written Instructions:- We expect clear written instructions. Hand written instructions should be in capitals please. We may refuse to accept liability for errors where instructions have not been clearly written down. Don't ring and say you are sending an order and then send it a fortnight later and expect us to remember any verbal instructions given - we deal with hundreds of people and can't be expected to keep track of ‘potential’ orders that may never arrive.

Our Estimates:- Although we may give you a written estimate for your job we reserve the right to adjust our price should any circumstances change that are beyond our control and effect our costs. Should this situation occur we will seek your permission before proceeding. If you refuse then we may, at our discretion, charge for the work done so far and give you any such work so that you may have the job completed elsewhere. All estimates are subject to sight of job and we reserve the right to adjust our charges should work not be as specified on our estimates.

Price Increases:- We try to be flexible when it comes to applying price fluctuations that our customers may be unaware of but whether we enforce a price increase will always be at our discretion. It is the customers responsibility to ensure that our prices are acceptable before instructing us to start a job. Current prices are published on our website and our printed pricelists which are available on request. Since many things can increase our costs we reserve the right to alter our prices without notice. The price we charge for any job shall be the price in force on the day it was ordered.

Your Materials:- Although we take great care of customers property whilst it is in our posession we consider anything you send to us to be sent totally at your risk and do not accept responsibility for loss or damage however caused. We will assume that your property is not valuable and return it to you via normal letter post unless specifically instructed otherwise. Return of your property via other methods at your request may be charged for. Should loss or damage occur in transit then our liability shall not exceed the value of any subsequent insurance claim paid by the carrier to us.

Our Materials:- All intermediate artwork, plates, films etc. that we produce whilst processing your job shall at all times remain our property. Access to such material is entirely at our discretion.

Colour matching and Customers Artwork:- Please remember that the range of colours (colour gamut) that can be produced on a press in CMYK is very limited compared to the colour range of a computer monitor, photographic print/transparency, or office printer/inkjet. Knowing this fact and dealing with it correctly is one of the main skills involved in producing professional quality artwork for print. For this reason we cannot guarantee to colour match any artwork you supply to any standard you may have - these being your artwork and your standards, not ours. We will not entertain complaints about colour match beyond our standard variations laid out below unless you have clearly stated in writing that you require a colour match and that you have paid extra for this service. We will then process your job using more in-depth colour control procedures than is the norm in order to achieve the colour match you are paying for.
For normal work our guarantee is that we will print reliably to our own standards as set out here.. Our minimum press standards on coated stock are that we hold a 4% highlight dot and keep a 96% shadow dot open and that a 50% midtone dot will be 50% plus or minus 4% before dot gain is applied. Our normal press gain at 50% is in the range of 8% - 16% (matchprint gain is 13% for sheetfed offset on coated stock). Ink densities are controlled to within these ranges - Cyan and Magenta plus or minus 0.08, Black plus or minus 0.15 and Yellow plus or minus 0.07 of a standard logarithmic densitometer reading. These standards will give broadly reasonable (but not absolute) repeatable reproduction of correctly created artwork. Variation within these limits may produce visible effect on certain jobs but will not be considered by us to be an error.

Colour variation within a print run:- Please be aware that this is a fact of life with offset printing and not a sign of incompetence on our part. We print to the standards indicated above and you can expect variation within this range throughout a run. We do not guarantee that every sheet will be exactly the same only that every sheet will be printed within our standard variation range (unless you have paid extra for a colour match). This will produce acceptable quality print in virtually all circumstances however if this is not good enough for your purposes then we are not the right printer for you. In other words it makes no sense to send work that demands high standards of colour match and variation to a low cost batch printer. We get many, many more recommendations than complaints but please be reasonable and remember that our business is providing decent quality print at the right price not perfection on the cheap!

Our Quality Standards:- Should we supply you with work that through our fault is demonstrably inferior to normal quality standards prevailing in the printing trade for a similar price then we will consider ourselves to have failed to meet minimum standards and you are entitled to a reprint or discount as you wish. Normally we aim for higher quality results than those prevailing amongst similarly priced printers and this is what makes our print services excellent value rather than just inexpensive..

Errors in Your Computer Files:- Anyone can produce some form of artwork on disk but producing commercial quality artwork involves skill and experience. Unless we are being specifically asked and paid to get involved with artwork we believe it is unfair for customers to expect us to edit or verify their work free of charge or to give free lessons in the use of their programs. We do not consider it our responsibility to ensure the quality of what you send us. If we see errors in your work we will inform you and allow you to make alterations but any costs we have incurred upto that point may be charged for if we think they are becoming unreasonable. Any changes you ask us to make will be entirely at your responsibility even if in altering your files we make other errors (many repro houses/printers will refuse to edit customers files so as not to open this potential can of worms). We do not consider it our responsibility to spot errors in your files nor to correct them and you should treat our checking processes as a final safeguard - not as a free proofing service. Please bear in mind that, although we will not knowingly output faulty computer files, quality is a very subjective thing and it is not our responsibility to decide if your artwork is suitable for your purpose. Ultimately we have no way of knowing if what you send is not what you want. If you decide to submit your own computer artwork for print then you must verify it yourself before sending it to us. All we guarantee is that it will be printed to a good commercial standard as you sent it. WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU READ OUR ARTWORK HELP PAGES BEFORE SENDING A JOB.

Our Errors:- In the unlikely event of us supplying you with faulty work due to error or omission on our part (excluding errors arising from us having to edit your files or if your instructions are unclear) we will re-do your job again free of charge on return of the faulty goods. We only guarantee colour matching on jobs that we print within commercially acceptable limits if a colour match has been specifically requested in writing and Matchprint contact proofs have been approved and signed for. We may not accept responsibility for some errors if you do not supply suitable colour separated and composite proofs and any required fonts or related files along with written instructions. We will keep your job on our computer system for 10 working days after it has been despatched. We may refuse to re-run jobs free of charge that have been returned to us on disk as faulty after this period. It is up to you to ensure that any materials we supply are suitable for your purposes BEFORE they are used. We do not under any circumstances accept responsibility beyond the invoiced value of the work we have supplied.

Register/fit:- If you are supplying computer artwork don't forget to set trapping/overprint values as you require. We may not accept responsibility for the fit of incorrectly or untrapped jobs.

Advice given by us:- It is not unusual for customers to seek our advice when creating their artwork. A typical example is when we are asked to describe colours over the telephone. We are quite happy to help but any advice we give is acted upon by you entirely at your own risk. We do not consider it reasonable that we should take responsibility for any part of the production of your artwork for which we are not being paid and over which we have no control. If you wish to formally engage us as artwork consultants then we will take responsibility for our advice and charge you accordingly. Otherwise the artwork is yours and so, ultimately, is the responsibility and if you are not willing to accept this do not ask for our advice.

Complaints and reprints:- We may refuse to reprint a job for free if you change the specification or artwork. In other words we will only offer a free reprint in order to correct our errors - not yours!

Hard Copy Proofs:- If you are supplying computer artwork we strongly recommend that you print all four colour separations of your job on a postscript laser or similar. If you can successfully print separations then the chances are that we will also be able to. This will also enable you to spot separation errors such as RGB graphics etc. Set your printer driver to download all fonts as outlines - do not use resident fonts. We strongly recommend that you use a postscript device for all proofing. These simple precautions will remove most problems before they have chance to waste our time and your money. We may refuse to accept responsibility for errors if your artwork has not been properly proofed.

Our right to refuse:- We reserve the right to refuse to accept an order or to reject any partially complete order without reason given. This especially but not exclusively applies where we consider the material to be derogatory, indecent, libellous, racist, inflammatory or designed to mislead the public or promote any illegal activity.

Content:- We cannot be expected to read and verify the truthfullnes, honesty and legality of any material we print for you and should the content of your job result in any court action or prosecution or liability of any kind then the responsibility is entirely yours and you agree to indemnify us fully should we incur any costs or damages in this respect.

Bad Debts:- Any account not settled within the agreed terms may be persued for payment and any costs incurred along with interest added to the value of that debt. Interest will be charged on debts at 6% above HSBC Bank standard overdraft rates from the point in time that the debt became due for payment.

Resolving Disputes:- If all reasonable avenues of dispute resolution have been exhausted and either party resorts to court action then the case must be dealt with at a session local to us here in Goole. This also applies in cases where we are applying for court judgement against customers for non/late payment.

Delivery Dates:- All delivery dates and times we give are estimates only and because of variations in workload and other factors (often unsuitability or errors in customers supplied artwork) we do not guarantee to deliver on a particular date. In printing many things can throw an unforseen spanner in the works and if it is absolutely vital that you have your printing by a particular date then you should make this very clear in writing on ordering and also make sure you order in good time. If we say your job will take 10 working days then it will probably be delivered within that time. However if you absolutely need it within 10 working days we strongly recommend that you allow 15 working days to be safe.

Liability:- Under all circumstances the liability of Caralan Printers for any loss or damage incurred by you or any third party for whatever reason will be limited to the invoiced value of the goods only.

Contract:- Contract between us shall be interpreted in accordance with English Law. Since we only accept work on the basis of the terms here stipulated any transaction between us shall be deemed to incorporate the above terms and conditions which shall take precedence over all other conditions unless we have agreed otherwise in writing.