With digital printing, alignment is generally good, but not usually 100% accurate every single time.
Here’s why:
Digital Printing
How it works: The image is created directly from a digital file and printed in one pass (toner or inkjet).
Alignment tolerance: Even high-end digital presses often have a slight mechanical drift of ±0.5 mm to ±1 mm between sheets or sides.
Causes of variation:
Paper feed path differences from sheet to sheet.
Curl or static in the paper.
Double-sided printing requires the sheet to be re-fed or reversed, introducing tiny shifts.
Impact: Usually unnoticeable on most jobs, but critical elements near folds or tight borders can show misalignment.
If you’re designing for digital printing, it’s preferable to allow a small tolerance in your artwork (e.g., keep borders away from edges, avoid tight front/back lining).
This is why we advise customers to keep all key content (key images and key text) within the purple line on our previewer, as anything outside this line is at high risk of being trimmed.