How to check a logo before printing it
Zoom in far enough to see the edges, check you are approving the right artboard, look for white artwork on transparency, confirm the text is the final wording, and make sure you have the vector file and not a screenshot of it.
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1. Zoom until the edges tell you something
At page size everything looks fine. Zoom to three or four times and you can see whether curves are smooth, whether two shapes actually meet, and whether a hairline rule is there at all. If zooming turns the artwork into soft blocks, you are not looking at the vector — you are looking at a picture of it, and you cannot judge anything from that.
2. Check which artboard you are approving
Brand files usually hold the logo several ways: full colour, single colour, reversed for dark backgrounds, stacked, horizontal, and an icon on its own. Approving "the logo" when the file has six is how the wrong lockup ends up on a thousand printed bags. Step through every artboard before you answer.
3. Look for white artwork on transparency
A reversed logo is white, with nothing behind it. On a white page it looks like an empty file. A viewer that shows transparency as a checkerboard makes this visible at a glance; without one, people report a broken file that is perfectly correct.
4. Read the text, letter by letter
The single most expensive print error is a spelling mistake in a name, a phone number or a URL, and it survives every check that is not someone reading it slowly. Zoom in and read the actual characters. Check the domain. Check the phone number digit by digit.
5. Make sure you have the file, not an image of it
If all you have received is a PNG or a screenshot, you cannot send that to a printer for anything large. Ask for the vector: .ai, .pdf or .svg. A printer can scale those to a building; they cannot rescue a 600-pixel PNG.
What you cannot judge on a phone
Colour. A phone screen is not calibrated, it is probably in a colour-shifting display mode, and printed ink does not match emitted light anyway. If the exact colour matters, ask for the ink or Pantone references in writing and, for a big run, ask the printer for a proof.
When it passes, how to send a logo to a printer covers which file to attach and what to put in the email.
Pathside
An offline viewer for .ai, .pdf, .svg and .eps artwork. Files are drawn on your device and nothing you open is ever uploaded — it works the same in aeroplane mode. Viewing is free; exporting to PNG, JPG or PDF is a one-time unlock.