Tuesday Tip for Legal Professionals: Low-res PDFs wreck legibility
- Tamas Cseza
- Oct 28
- 1 min read
Aim for ≥150 dpi (ideally 300 dpi for scans) so court books stay crisp.
When exporting from DMS/case tools (iManage, NetDocuments, Clio, Relativity, etc.):
Pick High/Print quality (not “Web/Small file”).
Disable downsampling or low-quality compression.
For productions: image at 300 dpi; use TIFF G4 or high-quality PDF for exhibits.
When scanning on the MFP (Ricoh/Xerox/Konica Minolta):
300 dpi, Text or Text/Line Art.
Turn off Small file/Compact/MRC aggressive modes.
B/W for text pages; greyscale only when needed.
Quick ways to check resolution:
Acrobat Pro: Print Production → Preflight → “List images below 150 ppi”.
Fast visual check: zoom to 200–300%—letterforms should stay sharp, not blocky.
How we help: We preflight every document before printing and alert you if any pages are low-resolution that could affect legibility—recognizing law firms often must work with the files provided, and truly legible originals aren’t always available. When needed, we’ll suggest fixes or rescan.
