Preparing Your Document for a Print Shop
(using Swift Publisher)
If you decided to print your documents in a print shop, you'll probably find
helpful to get some tips on how to prepare the correct design, and which format to use to meet
the print shop requirements. Below you can find these requirements and tips.
Document Design Requirements
Resolution
You may want to use photos and images obtained from a digital
camera, scanner or from the Internet. Resolution is crucial
for high quality of the printed picture. A picture that looks
all right on the screen, may have jagged edges and appear fuzzy
when printed. So, your image must be at a resolution of at least
300 dpi. To check whether your image has enough resolution, zoom
in on your document until 600%. If the image looks acceptable,
it will look fine when printed.
If you still decided to use a low-resolution image, resize it in
Swift Publisher to make it smaller — the print output
quality will increase.
With Swift Publisher you get the collection of high quality images.
When you use images from the Internet, make sure their quality is
good enough for your work. Usually, resolution of such pictures
is too low for commercial printing.
Colors
When you design your document, the colors you see on the screen
are made up of the following three color components: red, green and
blue (such color scheme is known as RGB). The monitor mixes these
three colors to produce other colors. However, printers and other
polygraphic equipment use another set of color components: Cyan,
Magenta, Yellow and Black (this scheme is called
"CMYK"). Consider this when designing your document
— avoid using colors that are too bright, because the colors
on paper may not always match those you see on the screen.
To get printed colors look like on your screen:
- The appropriate screen profile should be selected for your display.
- The original graphics, you are going to add into your document, should
be converted to CMYK colors.
- Use the CMYK Sliders on the standard Colors for choosing colors for
elements of your design.
Swift Publisher document can be converted to CMYK colors when you are exporting it
to a TIFF or JPEG graphic file.
Preparing Your Materials for a Printing Company
File formats
Before you carry / upload your work to a printing company, find out
printing companies file format preference. Almost all print shops
accept materials in the PDF and TIFF formats. Swift Publisher allows
you to save your design in both these formats, with the required
quality (the standard for high quality printing is 600 dpi resolution).
Use the File / Export menu command for this.
JPEG file format is not recommended. It loses quality because of
compression. Also JPEG images usually are not sharp.
PDF and Fonts
To display and print a PDF document correctly on another machine, all
used fonts should be installed on it. Otherwise, the system will try to
find replacement fonts. Such fonts may look differently than on your
computer. To avoid this problem, two methods are commonly used. The first,
the used fonts are embedded into the PDF document. The second, all text is
converted to a vector image that looks exactly like your text (no quality
loss when you scale it up). Note that both methods inflate the size of PDF
document. In Swift Publisher, you can use the second method. For this,
activate the Convert Text to Curves option in the PDF export settings.
Passing your materials to a print shop
Once you've designed your document, save it on the disk in the required
format (the filename extension — PDF or TIFF — should not
be omitted). Before sending the file, compress it to decrease its size.
It's especially important if you submit your design via the Internet.
Compress your files using the Aladdin's StuffIt to create a SIT file,
or a Zip archiver (choose the File / Create Archive menu item in Finder).
There are several ways to deliver the prepared material
to the print shop — ask your company
which method is appropriate for them:
- Write your files to a CD, DVD, Zip or Jaz disk, and mail or
carry the disk to the print shop. On your disk include only the
file(s) you want to have printed.
- Upload the files via FTP (File Transfer Protocol). If your
print shop supports this method, ask them for their FTP server
name, login and password.
- Send your file(s) as an e-mail attachment. Many providers
don't allow sending large attachments (over 2 MB), so make sure
yours does, and your print shop accepts large attachments.
- On-line. Many print shops may have a file upload form on
their web sites. Follow the instructions there.
Don't forget to consult your print shop for their preferred method.
Some More Tips
Text background
To make flyers, brochures and other printed production more attractive,
designers use background images. If you have such background images
behind text, make sure, that the text is readable. Don't make background
too dark behind the black text.
In Swift Publisher, you can adjust opacity of images or tint them so
they are in contrast with text.
Check spelling and punctuation
Before you send your documents to a print shop check spelling and
punctuation. Some text editors can do this for you. Don't let an
unfortunate misprint bring your work to nothing.
Make a hard copy of your document
Before ordering thousands copies of your document, print one to see
that all is done well. This will help you to avoid mistakes. May be
you will see something what you miss on the screen.
Last reviewed: April 2008
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