File Preparation:

Software Choices

Microsoft has made some very useful software for word processing, database, and presentations. It is generally recommended to use other publication packages when preparing documents to be printed to metal plates, known as offset printing, or for preparing a document for a reset job.

Prepare documents for copying

When sending your files to the Copy Center, you may use MS Word or MS PowerPoint to prepare them. These files need to be saved as an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file and sent in that format.

Prepare documents for printing

If you have a job that will need changes made or will be printing via the Offset Press, you will want to consider alternative software such as Quark or Adobe PageMaker. If you do not have this software, University Graphics can layout your documents for publication.

Fonts

Many people believe that the fonts are automatically included with their files. This unfortunately is not true. With so many versions of any one font on the market, transporting your job can be risky when it comes to font substitution. Even Times Roman has several versions available. When your original font is substituted with one of ours, it can cause your paragraphs to re-wrap, thus pushing your text and images out of alignment. So, it is very important that you always include all the fonts and graphics that are used in the creation of your document.

Embedded Graphic Images

Another common misconception is that your graphic images are embedded in your publication. Although we can see them on the screen and in the document, this does not mean that the actual .eps or .tiff files are included. In order to insure that your graphics print properly, always include your image files separately when sending your document files. Without the actual image file, your graphics may become bitmapped or pixilated, causing them to look chunky.

Color Processing (CMYK)

Four-color process is a system where a color image is separated into 4 different color values by the use of filters and screens This is usually done digitally. The result is a color separation of 4 images that when transferred to printing plates and printed on a printing press with the colored inks cyan (blue), magenta (red), yellow and black, reproduces the original color image.