How to Preview Your Order with Our Free Proofing Option

A proof, if requested, is a digital mock-up of your document — the layout, your name, dates, seals, and signatures — sent to you before we print or ship anything. It’s not a preview of paper stock, texture, or finish; it’s your chance to catch a wrong date, a misspelled name, or a layout issue while it’s still a quick fix instead of a reprint. Most orders leave the choice up to you, though for especially complex requests we may go ahead and build one anyway, since we’d rather confirm the details than risk getting them wrong.

With every order, you can request a proof. You can skip it if you want — we don’t recommend it, but the option is there. A proof lets you check the layout, the structure, your name, your dates, everything, before we ever print or scan a single finished document. If you hate what you see and we can’t fix it, we void the authorization on your card. Nothing charges. That’s how the proof ties directly into our 90-day guarantee — because our commitment to getting it right starts before the ink ever hits the paper.

How to Request a Proof

Every order form includes a simple question: “Do you want to review a proof before we proceed?” It’s set to “Yes” by default, because we encourage requesting one — but you’re free to switch it to “No” if you’d rather skip straight to production.

There’s no added fee either way. If you leave it set to “Yes,” your order is assigned to a designer once it comes in, and they get started on your mock-up — your custom name, dates, seals, and signatures, built into the layout.

For some orders, we’ll insist on a proof even if you selected “No” — usually when the request is complex enough that we’d rather confirm the details with you than risk getting it wrong. Selections like a raised seal upgrade or custom coursework/classes fall into this category — they take significant designer time to build, so we’d rather get your approval upfront than redo the work after the fact.

How the Proof Gets to You

Once your order comes in and you’ve requested a proof, it gets assigned to one of our designers. They build your mock-up — your layout, your details, your document — and when it’s ready, our ticket system takes over.

Every proof request generates a ticket with its own ID number. You’ll be notified as soon as it’s ready, with a way to view your proof and respond right through our ticket system. It’s secure, cloud-based, and easy to use — no login to our store required, nothing to download. You open it, you see your proof, and you tell us what you think.

Most samples come through as PDFs. If you’re ordering a custom transcript and want to make edits yourself, we sometimes send those as editable documents — but that’s a conversation that usually happens on the transcript side of things.

Everything stays inside the ticket. Every revision request, every comment, every approval — it’s all documented in one place with a reference number attached to it. That matters to us because it keeps jobs organized and keeps customers protected. If there’s ever a question about what was approved or what was requested, the ticket has the answer.

What to Check When Your Proof Comes In

This is the part that saves everyone time. When your proof arrives, don’t just glance at it. Open it, zoom in, and go through it carefully.

Check your name first — spelling, middle name if applicable, exactly how you want it to appear. Check the graduation date, the degree title, the institution name. Look at the layout and ask yourself honestly whether it matches what you were expecting. That last part matters more than people realize.

We match the layout to the year you graduated. If you finished in 1984, we’re working from the 1984 design. The problem is a lot of people remember their diploma differently than it actually looked, especially 20 or 30 years later. We’ve had customers come back and say they don’t like the layout — and sometimes that’s because the 1984 design genuinely isn’t what they pictured. In that case, we can work with you. We can look at other years from the same school, find something that fits better, and adjust. The proof is exactly where that conversation should happen — not after it’s been printed.

Also use the proof to sort out any upgrades. If you’re looking at the mock-up and wishing you’d added a raised seal or a different emblem, talk to your designer at that stage. It’s easy to adjust before production. It’s a much bigger deal after.

Nothing Charges Until the Document Ships

This is worth saying clearly because it changes how the whole thing feels.

When you pay by credit card, we place an authorization on your card — we don’t capture the charge. The charge only processes when your document is finished and ready to ship or deliver. If you see your proof and you’re unhappy, and we can’t get it to where it needs to be, we void the authorization. Nothing posts. The hold releases.

Your bank controls how fast that clears from your statement — some institutions take a few days, and that’s a bank timeline, not ours. But from our end, the moment we cancel, it’s done.

That’s also why the proof connects to our 90-day guarantee the way it does. The proof is your chance to catch everything before production. The guarantee is your safety net if something still isn’t right after it arrives. Between the two, you’re covered at every stage of the order.

What If I Skip the Proof? Pros and Cons

Every order form defaults to “Yes” on “Do you want to review a proof before we proceed?” — every order includes one unless you say otherwise. If you’re in a hurry, you can switch it to “No” and your order goes straight to production. No proof, straight to shipping.

Keep in mind requesting a proof adds the review and approval window to your order timeline — worth it for the safety net, but if speed matters most to you, that’s the tradeoff.

Why we like proofs, even for repeat customers:  it’s not just about catching typos. Seeing the mockup jogs something people didn’t think to check — “wait, I graduated in 2006, not 2008” is a real conversation we have. Others use the proof to ask their designer questions that never would’ve come up until they saw the layout in front of them. A proof isn’t just quality control; it’s often the first time a small detail you’d have missed becomes obvious.

Why some people skip it anyway: for some customers, the proof step feels like friction — waiting on a notification, going back and forth with a designer, waiting on approval. If you just want it shipped and you’re confident in your order, skipping saves that round trip.

Certain options override your choice regardless. Next to selections like a raised seal upgrade or custom coursework/classes, the order form notes that choosing it may mean we enforce a proof — even if you’d unchecked “Request Sample?” earlier. The reasoning is simple: something like custom coursework can take hours of a designer’s time to build. We’d rather get your approval on it than find out after the fact that it needs to be redone.

Turnaround and Approvals

On a typical business day, most proofs are actually ready within 1–2 hours of placing your order — often well ahead of the windows above.

If you’re placing a late order and need a same-day proof, call us at 866-687-5403 or use live chat Monday–Friday, 9AM–5PM ET. We’ll check designer availability and do what we can.

Once you receive your proof, you have seven days to approve it or request changes. If we don’t hear back within seven days, the order cancels automatically and the authorization voids.

Revisions don’t have a hard limit — we’d rather get it right than rush it through. Most orders get approved in one or two rounds because we ask detailed questions upfront. The more specific you are in your order notes, the closer your first proof comes in.

What Happens After You Approve Your Proof

Every order lets you choose how you’ll receive it: physical printed copy, digital PDF, or both.

Each business day morning, our sample team reviews new orders, prepares proofs for anyone who requested (or was required to have) one, and sends them out. Once you approve, that same ticket is used to finish your order — no separate step, no new form. If you ordered a digital PDF, the final file is attached to the ticket. If you ordered a physical copy, it goes to printing and packaging, and once it ships, the tracking number is added to your order in our system. If you ordered both, the digital PDF goes out with your approval and the physical copy follows once it’s packaged and shipped.

Approval cutoff: to guarantee same-day production and shipping, we need your approval by 2:00 PM ET. If you approve after that, we’ll do our best to fit it in — depending on workload and whether the day’s courier pickup has already happened — but it’s not guaranteed. Call us at 866-687-5403 or Chat Now if you’re close to the cutoff and want to check.

Our sample team’s hours are Monday–Friday, 9AM–5PM ET. If you approve a proof outside those hours — including responses sent late at night or on weekends — it’ll be picked up first thing the next business day, not right away.

If anything comes up after final copies are sent out — regardless of whether you requested a proof — our sample team can be notified to make it right. Every order is backed by our 90-day guarantee. We don’t do “all sales final.” If something’s wrong, we fix it.