Adobe PageMaker: You will need to gather the fonts and artwork and the PageMaker file manually and put them on a disk. We do not know of any automated way of doing this. PageMaker is being fazed out and replaced with InDesign. The tools in PageMaker are simple, easy to use, and it is still a very capable program. However, Adobe has stopped development of this tool in favor of InDesign. PageMaker is also an excellent tool for books and other items where a lot of text is involved. It also has weak drawing tools, and does not display things on the screen as well as InDesign.
Adobe PhotoShop CSx: The Best practice is to save as and Adobe Photoshop PDF. This leaves the text and or the entire vector based elements as vector elements without flattening your document. It is also good practice to save out a small flattened jpg or bring in a print of what your document is supposed to look like for comparison purposes. We can accept Photoshop PSD files as well. While it is possible to do layout work in Photoshop, we do not recommend it. PhotoShop is a raster-based application, and is excellent at editing images, creating backgrounds, and text effects. It has the ability to use 3rd party plug-ins for additional functionality. There are problems for offset printing that are posed because of the nature in which PhotoShop works, and its flexibility in color spaces. When working on a project that you intend to print at a commercial printer you should select Swop Sheetfed Coated for your CMYK color space under the Edit menu. Then make sure to work in the CMYK color space to avoid unexpected color shifts in your final output. Files created in PhotoShop can be difficult to “Trap” correctly, and there also may have undesired color shifts if the proper color space is not used during the design creation process. PhotoShop is not a good choice for layout, the vector tools and the way it handles text makes doing layout work cumbersome, time consuming, and if you don’t have the necessary for-sight you can have unpredictable results.
Adobe Illustrator files: Please convert the fonts to outlines or bring the fonts with you. Illustrator can be used for layout; however, layout tools are somewhat clumsy in Illustrator. The real purpose of the program is very much in the name. Illustrator is great for doing illustrations, and drawings, but a skilled designer, can create good files in it.
Adobe InDesign CS: Use the Package feature. This gathers all the linked graphics, fonts, and the InDesign file, all to one folder. InDesign is an excellent application for creating designs for all kinds and sizes of printed materials. It is especially well suited for long documents such as books and magazines. However, it does not have very powerful drawing tools, which is why you should purchase the whole CS suite if you want to use the Adobe tools.
Adobe Acrobat: We are compatible with the latest Acrobat files. The PDF format is a way for programs to store information so that it can be viewed on any computer, and so that it can be printed out. Not all PDF documents are created equally. We also have tools to analyze PDF documents to check for common problems such as color space and resolution and font issues. PDF documents can be generated by almost any application these days, and there are limitations to what can be used. Please look at the specifications listed for PDF files for more information on what is ideal in a PDF document. If you have questions about the PDF format you can find more useful information on the following web pages.
www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/adobepdf.html www.planetpdf.com
CorelDraw x4: Blip has been using CorelDraw since version 1.12. Though the name indicates that it is a drawing tool, don’t be fooled. It is also a very powerful layout tool as well. CorelDraw has a working space of 150’x150’, it understands a great number of file formats, and has powerful text and layout tools that supplement its excellent drawing tools. If you decide to do layout work in CorelDraw we can help you by building templates for you. CorelDraw by default embeds all graphic elements into the .cdr file when saved. There is an option to embed fonts as well when you do a “Save As” so that you do not have to gather any of the elements. CorelDraw can be used for long document creation, but if you don’t use OPI for placing graphic elements the document can become very large quickly and can impose a burden on your system resources. CorelDraw does not have all of the tools that make long document creation as easy as it can be in a program such as InDesign.
Corel PhotoPaint x4: PhotoPaint is one of three different raster editing tools that are now under the Corel umbrella of products. PhotoPaint comes packaged with the CorelDraw Graphics suite and is a powerful image-editing tool; some would even argue that it is almost as powerful as PhotoShop. It has the ability to use any PhotoShop 3rd party plug-ins for more functionality. Due to the fact that we have been using PhotoShop for many years now, and we are more familiar with it, we do not use PhotoPaint nor do we have it installed on any of our systems. We can however open up the PhotoPaint documents within CorelDraw, to which we have a limited amount of editing capabilities. Like PhotoShop we do not recommend that you do layout work in PhotoPaint.
Quark Express 6.5: Do a “Collect for Output” to bring us the document, fonts and all linked graphic elements. Quark Express used to be the one of the gold standards of page layout, but is quickly losing ground to Adobe InDesign. Quark has some great features for layout and long document creation; it has the ability to use special 3rd party plug-ins to make it even more powerful, and has some vector tools included as well. However it is expensive, and can be difficult to use. There is a steep learning curve involved with this program.
Macromedia Flash MX 2004
MS Office: Usually we can use the file just as you have it. Keep in mind with office programs do not have any sort of font mapping capabilities, so bring in your fonts too. Microsoft Office products only understand the sRGB color space, so you can expect color shifts when they are printed to postscript printers.
MS Publisher 2003: Use the “Pack and Go” feature located under file in the menu, and select “Take to Commercial Printing Service”. This will bring all graphic elements, fonts and the file in a compressed file to us. It will create in the location of your choice a .PUZ, .PU1, and an Unpack.exe file. Bring all 3 files. If you plan to have us print your file on press, you should change the color mode that Publisher is working in so that you get a more accurate representation on the screen as to how your job will print. To do this select “Tools” from the menu bar, then select “Commercial Printing tools” then select “Color Printing” A small dialog box will open up and select “Process Colors (CMYK)” then say OK. If you are doing this to an existing document and you notice a large shift in the colors on your display this is because you just mapped non-printable colors from the sRGB color space into the standard CMYK printing color space. For more information see the section that discusses color space.
MS Publisher 2007: Microsoft added the ability to save directly to PDF shortly after the release of Office 2007. To access this feature go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F1FC413C-6D89-4F15-991B-63B07BA5F2E5&displaylang=en and download the installer. Microsoft had an agreement with Adobe to not include this in the shipping product. Once downloaded and installed, set your document to the CMYK color space as described in the MSPub2003 instructions, then click file, save as pdf, then print quality. Viola you are done!