The ratio formed by the relationship of the height:width of an image

When resizing a document it is usual to keep the aspect ratio the same - otherwise distortion of the image will become apparent - that is, it will appear stretched. It is important to know the aspect ratio so that a suitable frame can be purchased for a print if the requirement is to have the width become 5.75" - but you don't know what the height will become.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_%28image%29

This is the most basic cut to make for decals and is thus the dullest. A more interesting technique is called a 'contour'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounding_box

This is a more advanced cut to make around decals. It's like if you had to cut the letters out with a pair of scissors and the person asked for the cuts on the paper to be at say, 1" from the text itself.

No Wikipedia article.

Your computer may have a different selection of fonts installed on it compared to what we have at our facility. When you save your design, generally the file will make reference to the font information, but not actually store the whole font's definition within your file. Therefore, when we review your file, the first thing the software says is 'Hey - where's this font?' and of course we don't have it. One way to overcome this problem is to instruct the creating application to 'convert text to curves'. This turns editable text into a bunch of lines and curves that can be manipulated just like any other geometric shapes in your design. At this point the text becomes uneditable however the design can be easily exported for reading by another application. A better option is 'font embedding'.

Some applications allow 'create text to curves' as an option during export. Others have it as a menu option. Some have no facility to accomplish this task. DO NOT save over your 'converted to text' version over your 'editable' version! You will not be able to edit your text in a 'word processor' like manner once it has been Convert to Curves. 'Converting to Curves' should be the last step of file preparation, and you should CAREFULLY save it under a different filename before sending it to us.

Handy dandy little lines that we can add to your print job so that it'll make it easier for you to trim your print when you receive it. No guessing as to where the image edges are, with some 'crop marks', you'll get a couple of half-crosshairs in each corner that show you exactly.

No Wikipedia article.

Before rolling a print for mailing, we ususally wait atleast 6 hours for the ink to 'cure' - that is, dry thoroughly. Otherwise the slightly tacky ink will stick to itself when packaged.

No Wikipedia article.

Your computer may have a different selection of fonts installed on it compared to what we have at our facility. When you save your design, generally the file will make reference to the font information, but not actually store the whole font's definition within your file. Therefore, when we review your file, the first thing the software says is 'Hey - where's this file?' and of course we don't have it. One way to overcome this problem is to specify to the creating application that it must embed the font information. There other is 'create curves from text'.

Some applications permit font embedding, others do not.

jpg files lose detail to accomplish a smaller file size. tif does not lose detail

Jpg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jpg

tif: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIF

Lossy / Lossyless compression: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_compression

Don't even worry about this unless you have a Pantone calibrated monitor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantone. If you do have a Pantone calibrated monitor, then you have the ability to specify specific colours within the Pantone palette that we can reproduce on our plotter. If you do not, then you may find slight differences in the colours you see on screen and the colours that we send you when printed. See also: gamut & rendering intent. Support for Pantone varies from product to product and is only truly useful when a Pantone calibrated monitor is used.

The document format that we use to send proofs to our clients.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format

We do our best to ship products in a timely fashion after which we are at the mercy of the Worlds postal services. If you require your product in a time-sensitive manner, please let us know so that we can arrange alternative methods of shipping.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail

There are predominantly four different ways to make sure that the colours you see on screen are translated into colours, or a range of colours, that can be printed. This does not mean that all colours can be recreated. The 'rendering intent' defines what will happen to colours in a design so that it can be displayed - or more typically printed - while maintaining accuracy across the design as a whole. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendering_intent. For most applications we only require clients to understand two. These are 'as close to what I sent you as possible' or 'make it as bright and bold as you can'. For accurate reproduction you'll need to use Pantone.

A better choice for fonts that need to be cut at a small size as they don't have knobbly bits. See 'Serifs'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans-serif

Although printing serif fonts is fine, when they are cut from vinyl at small scale, the knobbly bits tend to snarl on the blade

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serif