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November 11, 2015 By Tom Gimer

Money-Saving Tip: Convert to Grayscale

Most folks know that color printing is more expensive than black & white printing. However, many don’t know that the software they are using to create their projects (such as word processing or graphic design software) may assign a color other than black to content/text they think they are setting up to print black & white. Anything other than black (K) will be counted as a color print. In other words, if any color on any page includes anything other than K values (even 1% of C, M or Y in any pixel), it will count as a full color print.

As a company that receives hundreds of files per day, many sent for print on a rush basis, we don’t always have the time to inspect files to determine how they will print, or how our machines will account for black vs. color impressions. So, the best way to make sure you get what you pay for is to “pre-flight” files on your end.

Do you have Acrobat? Not the Acrobat Reader, the real thing — Adobe Acrobat. If so, here is what you’ll want to do to make sure you get black ink prints at black & white print prices:

Once you’ve converted your document to a PDF (see our prior articles about creating PDF-X/1a files), open it in Acrobat. Go to View –> Tools –> Print Production. Select “Pre-flight” from the Menu which appears to the right. In the dialog box which appears next, click the arrow next to PDF fixups. A list will appear below. Click the “Convert to grayscale” profile and then click on the button which says “Analyze and Fix”. Your file is now ready to be sent to the printer as a black & white print.

This is a basic fix. If you need to grayscale only certain pages of your file, please contact us for assistance.

April 3, 2014 By Tom Gimer

Tip: converting to PDF

If you want your document, artwork, postcard, flyer, business card, etc. to print correctly, the best way to make that happen is to learn how to create a print-ready PDF and also to review it carefully before submitting it to your printer. We’ve talked in the past about creating PDF/X-1a compliant files for perfect print jobs, but for many of our customers that is way too technical. They just want their documents to print like they look on their screens! So today’s post is intended to help these people learn to create a PDF from within common Windows programs. Note that we are not talking about exporting designs from software made to produce camera-ready art such as Adobe Creative Suite, but rather creating PDFs from within Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and similar programs.

There are 2 basic methods for creating a PDF…

Save As

The first method is the “Save As” method. When you are finished editing your document, click “File” (or the Microsoft Icon upper left if you are using a more recent version of Microsoft Office) and then “Save As”. A new dialog box should appear. It is within this dialog box that you will identify three important things about the file you intend to create:

Where (in what folder or location) to save the new document
The name of the new file
The type of file to create

With respect to the first element (where to save), you will want to save the new file in a convenient location. Perhaps a folder on your desktop is a good spot. You don’t want to have to search for the file.

As far as the name goes, you’ll need to save your file with a unique name because you’ll eventually have to locate it when attaching it to an email to your printer, saving it on a USB drive, etc. Many programs assign files generic names such as “document” — you’ll want to be more specific.

Last is file type. You should see a number of options in the drop-down for the type of file it is possible to create from within your program. Since you want to create a PDF, find that option in the list. When you click “Save” you should have a new PDF document to review. Review it carefully to make sure it appears as you expect.

Print to PDF

The second method you may want to try is the “Print to PDF” method. When you are ready to try to create your PDF, click “File” (or the Microsoft Icon upper left if you are using Office) and then “Print”. A new dialog box should appear. The top of this dialog box is where you you identify the printer to use. Click on the arrow to the right to see a drop-down list of all your printer options. Is there a printer called “Adobe PDF” listed? If so, select that as the printer by clicking on it.

Before you click the “Print” button, click on “Properties” to the right. A new dialog box should open. In this new dialog box you can make a lot more configuration changes to the PDF file you are about to create, including the PDF standard to use (use PDF/X-1a), the PDF page size, and more. Once you are finished, click “OK” to go back to the print dialog box. Print to PDF and review your document on screen and on paper for formatting errors.

Hopefully this will help you start to understand the PDF creation process from many of your computer programs. Let us know in the comments if you have any questions or concerns!

January 31, 2014 By Tom Gimer

Client files: the 3 most common design problems

Some of our clients are graphic designers who more often than not send us perfect, print-ready files. (Thanks, folks!) Some of our clients know absolutely nothing about design, and they depend on us to conceptualize and produce their projects from start to finish. Other clients fall in the middle. They aren’t designers, but they still have to dabble with design a bit. Small business owners, entrepreneurs, and staff of smaller corporate marketing or communications departments fit into this category. They are often given the task of preparing basic graphic artwork for their printed business communications. If this sounds like you, please read this post because it may help you avoid problems with your art.

Our clients often email us the files they want printed. Some examples of the designs they send us for quick printing are business cards, brochures, postcard mailers, reports or presentations to be turned into bound books, and so forth. When we open up these files to inspect them (a practice referred to as “pre-flighting”) we sometimes find problems. And there are three (3) problems that occur more often than all the others combined. Here they are (in no particular order):

Image Quality Issues

Image quality problems such as poor resolution can ruin an otherwise good design. If you want an image to print property, it should have a resolution of at least 300 dpi. There are a couple main reasons why an image might not meet this standard. First, it may have been scraped from the internet, where the typical image resolution is 72 dpi. This is just fine for viewing on a monitor, but it doesn’t work well for paper especially if the image must be re-sized. The other main cause of image quality issues is submission of “compressed” files. High-quality images can lead to very large file sizes. Combining several of them in one graphic design can make the file so large that emailing it isn’t possible. However, rather than asking for an FTP login to send us the original high-resolution art, clients sometimes send us a file that has been purposely compressed (the file size has been “shrunk”) to a size that can be emailed. Compression can also occur accidentally during the pdf export process by the client choosing the wrong PDF standard and ending up with a much lower resolution file than intended. As printers we want the highest-resolution artwork you can possibly send us. No compression please! If you don’t use FTP or a file-sharing site or application, consider bringing us your art on a flash drive. Take the opportunity while you’re here to choose the right paper for your project and kill two birds with one stone.

Document Setup Problems

If you want a 5×7 postcard but you send us a file that is on a letter-size canvas, we’ve got a problem. In this case we will have no idea of the final size you want the piece finished. Similarly, when you send us a file that has been imposed (multiple up, many copies per sheet) but it doesn’t have any trim marks, we’ve also got a problem — just where are we supposed to cut them? The same goes for art that is supposed to have bleeds but doesn’t include bleed and trim areas. The general theme with document setup problems is that although a client thinks the document/file is ready to print, it isn’t. And if it was created using some sub-standard product like Microsoft Office, we literally have to start over, import the elements into our design suite, and set up the file properly. Tip: at the time you create a new file, make sure the document page size and bleed settings (if applicable) are correct.

Fonts

We’ve written about this issue in our blog many times before, and there’s a good reason for it! After dealing with the “missing fonts” issue so many times, we concluded that people just don’t understand how fonts work. Here’s the deal: the machine that sends the file to the printer is the source of the fonts used in the document. This machine is always going to be a computer in our shop. That means the fonts you have installed on your PC or Mac which you are using in your design are irrelevant to the printing process unless you take extra steps to ensure that the file prints properly. For uncommon fonts you’ll either need to include the fonts with your native file package; convert the characters to outlines (paths); or export using the PDF/x-1a standard which, among other things, embeds the fonts in the file. (We always prefer the latter method.)

Hopefully this list will help you send better art files, and this will make us all a lot happier! Let us know in the comments if you are experiencing any other problems with the way your files print.

November 26, 2013 By Tom Gimer

Things to know when color is really important

Most of our customers aren’t particularly picky about matching colors. As long as their logo prints close to navy blue or periwinkle, or whatever color they use, they are generally happy. However, some clients are extremely concerned about matching colors perfectly — every time their logo (or whatever the important element is) is printed it must look exactly like the last batch of prints, and the one before that, and so on. This post is for these folks.

A client came to us about a year ago with a job that another printer was unable to complete to her satisfaction. This happens to us a lot, and for various reasons, but in this case it was due to a color issue. The other printer could not get the client’s logo to print with the right pink. Frustrated, she took the project elsewhere. When she came to us, she told us what had happened. Her logo, which was a central element on all of her marketing collateral — business cards, gift cards, and labels — was not printing consistently. Sometimes the pink she wanted was too red, on other prints it was too dark or too light. She had a sample in hand that she wanted us to match. We figured out right away that this was a client who was extremely concerned about color matching.

Having customers who are very sensitive to color issues is totally fine with us, it just requires more work and extra steps to get their projects perfect.

So we spent a couple of hours working to match pieces printed on one of our digital presses with the hardcopy sample she had provided. Since her business cards and gift cards were going to be printed on the same material — she selected a smooth, bright-white cardstock — we could use the same art for those and be confident that the colors would match. The labels were a different story, however, because she had already bought the stock she wanted to use for those. Her labels were white, but more of an eggshell white. And they were glossy. Since the color and type of the material used can affect how colors print significantly, we ended up having to adjust her label art a fair amount to get the labels to print colors which adequately matched those on the cards.

OK so what’s the point of this post? It’s not that color matching requires additional time and energy. There is more. Here’s what you need to know when color is really important to you:

1. Different machines print colors differently

Sure, digital presses all use the CMYK color model, but a file will print differently from one press to the next. If color matching is important to a client and we know it, we use the same press every time we print a job for that client. This should get noted in the client file so future jobs are printed properly. Some of our clients actually ask us to use a particular machine to print their jobs when they make an order.

2. The same machine can print colors differently over time

Sad, but true. Digital presses need to be monitored and cared for properly to keep them running well. We use a process called “calibration” to make sure our presses print colors consistently. This is done on on a set schedule throughout the month, but it is also done when we print on particular stocks and also when colors don’t seem to be printing correctly. Using a test sheet and a color measuring device we can see when either the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow or Black have gotten “out of whack” (for lack of a better phrase). Calibrating our presses is usually enough to get them printing accurate colors again. Sometimes we need to revert back to the last calibration settings to get things printing right.

3. Color issues must be addressed every time a job is printed

Because of the points raised above, the process of color matching must be undertaken every time the job is printed. Even when printing on the same machine, after it has been properly calibrated, you still need to confirm that the colors are printing to the client’s satisfaction. This requires visual inspection of a hardcopy proof. If you’ve read our blog before you know we often stress the importance of seeing and approving a hardcopy. This is especially true when colors are important to you.

So when colors are really important, plan for extra design and setup time, as well as some extra time out of your schedule to perform the inspection, to help make sure the job prints right.

September 17, 2013 By Tom Gimer

Common card and matching envelope sizes

It’s nice when you create a piece that fits perfectly in an envelope. Here are some common size combinations for cards and envelopes to match them. If your art has bleeds you’ll need to set your art up properly with extensions and trim marks. (Here our bleed settings are 0.125 in.)

Cards and Invitations

A-6 envelopes (4.75 x 6.5) are a frequent choice for small invitations. The card (or each panel of the card if it is a fold-over) should be 4.625 x 6.25. This is also known as a “Norwood” card.
A-7 envelopes (5.25 x 7.25) are probably the most common invitation envelope. The card should be 5.125 x 7 (“Lee”) but many people use 5 x 7.
A-8 envelopes (5.5 x 8.125) are sometimes used. The card should be 5.25 x 7.875.
6 x 9 envelopes are fairly popular because they hold a statement-sized card (5.5 x 8.5) which is created by cutting a standard letter sized sheet in half

Replies

A-1 envelopes (3.625 x 5.125) are sometimes used for carrying RSVPs or reply cards. The card should be trimmed to 3.5 x 4.825 (“York”).
A-2 envelopes (4.375 x 5.75) are the most popular choice for RSVPs or reply cards. The card should be 4.25 x 5.5 (“Dagmar”).

All of the above can be mailed at standard postage rates. No postal surcharges will apply.

There are many other combinations but these are the most common combinations we see in our work.