Creating a press-ready document is not simple. Publishers who understand most common problems can save their printer lots of aggravation.In print publishing, prepress problems typically cost money and can mean missed deadlines. Nobody likes getting the "we have a problem" phone call from their printer.
However, while mastering graphic design and prepress may take some time, publishers can avoid many of the major prepress pitfalls with a little knowledge, communication and some software tools.
Mordy Golding, founder of the New York-based Design Responsibly consultancy and author of numerous books on Adobe desktop publishing software, said the most common prepress problems happen because publishers are "not aware of the printing process."
"If you can arrange it," Golding said, "go to a printer and spend the day watching them running the presses. That, I think, is more valuable than going to a six-month course at a college. I know there are certain printers, especially the smaller mom-and-pop shops, that are usually very happy for you to come in and watch their presses run and see what they do on a daily basis."
Golding, whose latest book Sams Teach Yourself Creative Suite 2 All in One (Sams Publishing, $34.99) was published last month, said by shadowing a prepress professional, publishers can quickly understand press-specific subjects such as bleeds.
Making PDFs is not a cure-all
PDF (Portable Document Format) has been touted as an ideal and reliable file format to distribute and exchange electronic documents—including press-ready files for commercial printers. Unfortunately, customer-created PDF files have arguably become the number one prepress problem in desktop publishing today.
Golding said, "People are under the impression 'if I make a PDF file it will print correctly.' And printers are frustrated because they advertise they accept PDF files, yet they still have problems printing those files and turning them around and reproducing them reliably because there are many different variables that go into making a PDF file. Yes, PDF files can embed the fonts, but that doesn't mean that every designer will embed their fonts.
"And yes, PDF files can contain CMYK or spot color information but that doesn't mean that the user sets up that file correctly to begin with. And yes, a PDF can contain high resolution files but again, there is no assurance the designer used high resolution files. Maybe they downloaded some low-resolution GIF or JPEG images off of a Web site which can't be reproduced in high quality."
Read the full story on Pubish.com: Delivering Files That Print
