Artwork Guidelines...
A Quick Guide To Creating And Checking Artwork For Printing


The little snippets in this guide will not teach you how to be a good designer or how do be an efficient Computer operator. What they will do is highlight the fact that 85% of all reprints are due to artwork errors.

Most jobs are ganged up on large sheets with an automated Imposition program. These Imposed sheets are then Ripped and a color plotter proof is output. This proof is purely as a quick check for Imposition and Backing Up. We do not check each individual image/job for content or spelling. The supplied PDF artwork must be supplied correctly the first time.
 
However, we won't disregard problems if they are spotted. If we do spot a problem we will attempt to make the correction. On some occasions this may be possible.



Software
There are no hard and fast rules regarding the creation of artwork. Use what tools you are comfortable with, but please take the time to learn new software and ask yourself which program works better for the task ahead.

We work with the software package Adobe CS Suite featuring programs such as PageMaker, InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. Adobe created the postscript language and the PDF file format, therefore it makes sense that as a group who relies on PDF compatibility we should back the Adobe offering.

Other software packages your likely to come across are:

QuarkXpress
The industry leader in print layout for many years. Quark is now fighting back against the Adobe challenge. We will review the latest version as it becomes available and track any issues regarding PDFs created from it.

Macromedia Freehand and associated packages.
Please be aware that Macromedia has been bought out by Adobe and production of Freehand has discontinued. It is still a good layout program but care should be taken when creating PDFs directly from it.

Corel DRAW
This powerhouse of PC desktop publishing has been around for many years. The file formats created by older versions of Corel Draw can sometimes be a problem. The recent version is very good and allows the use of Worldwide PDF settings.
 
Microsoft Office
These industry standard packages of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Publisher are now far better than they were five years ago. Still they are not originally designed for process printing (apart from the later versions of Publisher). Care should be taken when dealing with these documents. Like Quark the latest version of Publisher is due for review and guidelines will be issued in the near future.

             
 

Fonts
Font Issues
Fonts must be supplied, embedded or outlined in artwork to ensure that they print correctly. A common problem with supplied artwork is when fonts are not packaged correctly, and if not rectified these will drop out of the printing.
 
If you supply a PDF to a us, please embed the fonts.