There are a few things that you can do to prepare a document for printing by a commercial printer. Plan your document first. Write out and sketch a draft of your document. If you do not know the proper size of stand documents, give a call and ask. This could save valuable time and money. Remember that printing machines are mechanical and must use mechanical finger to hold the paper as it pass through the machine, therefore, some of the paper can’t be printed on. If you want you document to “bleed” (print from edge to edge) in in the Wild Bill’s Hunting Club Brochure shown on this page, it will have to be printed on over sided paper and trimmed on all sides and this adds to the expense of your project. There are thousands upon thousands of fonts and nobody has them all. If you buy or find “unique” font, be sure your printer has it too, or it may be useless.
Fonts
Fonts are arguably the biggest problem with file transfers. Fonts are not automatically loaded and transferred with the file. There are thousands of different fonts available in several formats. Type 1 fonts (postscript) and True Type are the main ones we will deal with. Type 1 or Postscript fonts are most common of Mac systems and unlike most Service Bureaus who will accept only Type 1 fonts, we don’t mind True Type fonts. True Type fonts are most common on PC systems and many printers and service bureaus will not accept PC files or True Type fonts. We at On Time Printing wishing to serve you better will accept either type font and either platform (operating system) PC or Mac. When transferring a file from your system to ours, you need a copy of all fonts (include the entire family, bold, italic, condensed, etc.) contained in your file to bring with you for proper output. This is necessary because these files tell the computer how the type is supposed to look and there is one for each variation of a font. This is also true of graphics. Quark files will not work without all links provided. Most software has a provision in the file menu for printing by a third party. Often you have an option to select “prepare for an outside printer” or something similar. This will in most cases save all fonts and graphics with the file.
If you have any questions please call us 706-324-6862 and we will be happy to talk you through saving your file to bring to us, or E-mail to us.
Scans
Scans and graphics are another problem area if not done correctly. Digital printing does not require as much information as offset printed items and can be scanned at a much lower resolution making for smaller files. Don’t be mislead by your inkjet or digital printer and photo glossy paper, printed material can seldom match the hues of inkjet or digital prints. Printing on a paper to simulate the photo glossy look requires a very expensive paper. All files will need some manipulation after we receive them unless you are a professional and understand postscript printing thoroughly and call ahead to insure you are using the proper Printer drivers. In some cases even with professional files some tweaking is required to get the desired results. Web art is the worst source of art for printing. Web art is usually only 72 dpi and has been processed to reduce the colors down to 8 bit color so it will load fast on your screen, where most printed objects need to be 300 dpi and in 16 bit or 32 bit color to reproduce the color properly. We can remove information from an object, but we cannot put something in that has been removed. If you use web art in your printed piece it will almost certainly have jagged edges, and the results will be disappointing. Enlarging or stretching graphics in your piece without planning for it can result in less than desirable results also. If your art is too small you must compensate for it when you scan it see our page on unless you are using vector art which can be stretched to nearly any size required For additional information on scanning and preparing graphics for printing see our Software page.
When scanning objects to include with your files use the following settings to avoid problems of file size and still get maximum quality.
For digital printing at 85 lpi ~ (Laser Printers) ~ scan black & white at 132 dpi and scan color at 174 dpi.
For film at 133 lpi ~scan black & white at 206 dpi and scan color at 273 dpi.
For film at 150 lpi ~scan black & white at 232 dpi and scan color at 304 dpi.
For Big Color (wide format) Posters ~ scans at 300 dpi will usually have enough information for our software to enlarge with great quality.
To enlarge or reduce:
(line screen) x 1.5 x (enlarge or reduce %) = Scan Resolution.