Printing

Preparing Electronic Files for Printing

Printing can be done using hard-copy originals. However, the printing process is faster, less expensive, and better quality if you provide Creative Communications with electronic files. These may be submitted on floppy, ZIP disk, or you may ftp these files to Creative Communications.

If you are new to this process, contact your Account Manager for assistance.

Preparing Electronic Files for Printing

1. Creative Communications supports the following:

   MAC PageMaker InDesign Quark Express Illustrator Photoshop Acrobat Adobe Type 1 PostScript Library Microsoft Word (text only)

   PC PageMaker InDesign Illustrator Freehand Photoshop Acrobat Limited font set including some Adobe Type 1 PostScript fonts and Truetype fonts Microsoft Word (text only)

   If your software is not listed here, contact your Account Manager to discuss your options.

2. Proof and spell check your file. Double check that formatting is consistent from page to page (including margins, headers, page numbering.)
3. Embedding images in a PageMaker document is not advisable and results in a bloated file size. Graphic files should be supplied separately.
4. Rotate and/or flop large images in the application from which they were created. Then import the graphic into the document.
5. Do not trap anything. Creative Communications has specially designed software that optimizes the trapping function and allows for adjustments to be made for traps for different presses.
6. Avoid applying font styles with the style menu in the application. For instance, if you set a paragraph in Helvetica Light, but you select bold from the style menu for bolding one word, it may show bold on the screen or even in your laser print. However, since there is no Helvetica Light Bold in reality, only Helvetica Light will print.
7. All rules that reverse or need trapping should be a minimum of .5 point (an overprinting rule can be .25 point.) Rules may appear thicker when you print to your laser printer, but when printing to an imagesetter, they will be exact size (.5 point = 1/144th of an inch.)
8. Complete a Prepress Information form.

How do I submit my files?

Contact Us:

Printing Contacts