Whatever you want to print, whether it's a book, a brochure, posters, flyers, business cards, signage, a free standing display unit, billboards, laser or digital printing, from Macs or PC's, artwork will need to be supplied to printers in a digital format that they can work with. You can get a skilled graphic designer to produce your work for you and supply it to us for printing or you can let our design team loose on your ideas. Always remember good design works, bad design can damage your business. Just think - people will judge you on the look and feel of your printing, fact. There are two basic digital ways for printers to receive artwork. As a high resolution PDF (a more preferred up-to-date method) or everything collected together (usually a QuarkXpress, Adobe InDesign or Illustrator document with images and fonts included or outlined).
This is becoming a less preferred method. Basically, it means everything collected together - a QuarkXpress, Adobe InDesign or Illustrator document with images and fonts. (Obviously, I'm assuming you'd own the fonts and therefore are at liberty to send them out). The reason it is less preferred and the reason for problems with this method is compatibility. You must make sure that your software version will match our software version. they have at the printers. It may be necessary to save your Quark document to an earlier version.
Sometimes printers can find that the fonts don't load successfully – another thing that can go wrong. If this is what you have to do, here's how you do it. Quark, go File > Collect for Output, it will ask you to save the document if you haven't already, check everything in the checkboxes. Select where you want the folder saved, hit OK and it'll do it for you. InDesign, go File > Package.. hit Continue and, again, check every checkbox. And, same with Quark select where you want the folder saved, hit OK and it'll do it for you. InDesign has a good Preflight feature in the File menu. It checks if the fonts are OK and alerts you to any colour space errors with the images. Illustrator has no collect or package tool so you have to do it the old-fashioned way! Go Type > Find Font.. and write down your fonts. Go Window > Links and write down all the linked images and where they are on your system. Embedded images need not be collected. Then you have to find the fonts on your system – make sure you get exactly the right file names, Adobe Garamond is not the same as ITC Garamond. A more usual way to artwork an Illustrator file is to embed all the images and turn all the type into outlines therefore negating the need to collect the artwork.
There's an easy way and a slightly more complicated way. The easy way may be frowned upon as it may not be 100% reliable (always check your PDF before sending it to the printers). The slightly more complicated way may deliver better results. It's up to you! I'll give you the easy way first.
In Adobe Illustrator, simply go File > Save As… and select Adobe PDF as the Format, choose where you want your PDF to be saved and hit Save. In the Save PDF dialog box that follows you can choose the Adobe Preset. The tabs on the left side will be largely left to the default setting of the preset. But you may want to add crops and bleed as desired and it is worth looking through them to see if anything looks awry or if there are any warnings. Then hit Save PDF.
In Adobe InDesign it is a very similar process only this time go File > Export… and select Adobe PDF as the Format, choose where you want your PDF to be saved and hit Export. In the Export Adobe PDF dialog box that follows you can choose the Adobe Preset which is discussed soon. Again, you may want to add crops and bleed as desired, but leave the setting as per the default Preset you have chosen, just flick through to check if everything looks OK. Then hit Export.
That was the easy way. The slightly more complicated way is through the Print dialog box. In InDesign go File > Print and select Adobe PDF as your Printer. In Marks and Bleed, set your marks and bleed as you want them. In Graphics, make sure All is selected in Images Send Data. In Advanced, make sure the Transparency Flattener is on High Resolution. Finally, hit the Printer button in the Print dialog box, make sure your Printer again is Adobe PDF, and select PDF Options from the drop down menu that starts with Copies & Pages. Here you can select your desired Adobe PDF Setting.
The slightly more complicated way in Illustrator is very similar to the slightly more complicated way in InDesign only remember to select 175lpi/2400dpi in Printer Resolution in the Output part of the Print dialog box. Everything else is more or less the same.
The only way to make a high res PDF from Quark is to first create a PostScript file. Go File > Print and click on the first tab Layout. Here you can specify whether you want your layout to be output as spreads or not (usually not) and Registration should be set to Centered to put crop marks on each separation of the PDF. Leave everything else unchanged.
Then click on the next tab which is Setup. For Printer Description choose Adobe PDF 7.0 or whatever version of Acrobat you have loaded. For Paper Size select Custom and enter a value roughly 40mm more than the width (double if you're printing spreads), leave the Paper Height. Paper Offset and Page Gap should both be zero. Reduce or Enlarge: 100% obviously. Leave the Orientation at landscape and Page Positioning at Left Edge.
The next tab in the Quark Print dialog box is Output. In Print Colors it should be Composite CMYK, even if it is a mono job or has special colours, the Halftoning should be Conventional. Resolution, I usually go for 2400 dpi, but Frequency (this is where guidelines differ wildly) anything between 175 and 400 lpi depending on output quality. 175 lpi would be sufficient for average quality magazine ad.
Next up is Options. Leave Quark PostScript Error Handler unchecked. Page Flip should be None, Output; Normal. Data, Binary. These are all defaults. However, Overprint EPS Black, I usually leave unchecked, but Full Resolution Tiff Output should definitely be checked. If your document has bleed then specify it, obviously, in the bleed tab usually as 3mm clipping at bleed edge. Finally, ignore OPI, check the Preview to see if the crops and bleeds all fit within the black square and, if you have a Profiles tab, make sure all Profiles are off as this can create havoc with your PDF.
Lastly, the actual saving of the PostScript file. In the Print dialog box click on the Printer button at the bottom, in the next box where it says Copies & Pages select Output Options the pull down menu, then check Save as File and in Format select Postscript, hit Save. If there is no Output Options in the drop down menu a shortcut is down on the left of the dialog box in the form of another button called PDF with a triangle pointing down, choose Save PDF. A browser window will pop up, select where you want the PostScript file saved then hit Save and then back to the Quark Print dialog where you hit Print. Once Quark has finished creating the PostScript file it just needs to be dragged to Acrobat Distiller to be turned into a PDF.
A PDF - or Portable Document Format, it you want to use a lot of syllables - is an open file format created by Adobe Systems, encapsulating a composite description of a document that includes the text, fonts, images, and vector graphics. The advantages of high res PDFs over collected artwork are numerous, here are four
- There's only one file not loads
- It's a smaller size
- There won't be any problems with fonts not loading or images going missing
- You will have a better idea of how the job will print.
First of all, top quality reliable PDFs can easily be exported direct from InDesign and Illustrator. The same can not be said for Quark. Do not, repeat, not send a PDF to the printers that has been exported direct from Quark.
So now you have your high resolution PDF on your desktop. Open it in Acrobat Professional and have a good look at all of the job - it might be the last time you see it and maybe you can spot some errors.
One thing I always do is go Advanced > Output Preview in Acrobat Professional as here you can see all the separations individually. Make sure you have a CMYK Simulation Profile selected at the top. Here spot colours can be checked as well as if the elements you want are overprinting or knocking out.
Also, run your mouse over the job an you can see the CMYK and spot colour percentage values in the Output Preview panel. This is your last chance to see if your colours will be printed correctly.
Go to Advanced and make sure Overprint Preview is checked. This will give you a screen representation of the job with the overprints and is not checked by default. So if you have had black type overprinting on a tinted background it will appear darker whilst using this preview. This can be a life saver as white elements that have erroneously been set to overprint will disappear here and on some presses. Go back to your advanced distiller options and uncheck Preserve Overprint Settings.
There is software out there that is reputedly excellent at prepress checking. Markzware FlightCheck should be used on Quark, Illustrator and InDesign files, and Enfocus PitStop can check print PDFs.
Now you must transport, physically or digitally, your files to us. If time is not tight, which it hardly ever is, then you can burn a CD or DVD and put it in the post along with your proofs or low res PDF clearly marked up for pagination.
If time is tight there are a variety of options. if the file is less than 20MB e-mail it to artwork@printing.ie
FTP is the preferred method of transporting large amounts of information between two computers over the internet. To do this it is best to use some sort of FTP software or "client". There are many clients out there for Mac and PC. For PC users, Filezilla or SmartFTP are generally recommended. For Mac users, I would recommend Fetch, Transmit or Cyberduck.
To upload to a remote site you will need three bits of information from them to input to your FTP client - the IP / Server address, a user name and a password. If these are accepted you can view the remote site and put the files there. When you have placed your order and you choose to supply your own artwork, you will receive an order number, please contact us with this order number and we will e-mail you personalised FTP details.
- Files with no bleeds or the wrong sized bleeds
- 72dpi or other low resolution files (files must be 300dpi!)
- Improperly sized files
- Files with text or other critical design elements placed too close to the cut or trim line.
- Missing fonts.
