Here are a few tips if you’re going to be laying out a large document and sending it to print. Some things will sound very obvious but most of these I’ve had to learn the hard way, so hopefully some of the tips will help you out.

So you’ve got yourself a nice grid down so your document will look nice and coherent throughout? What’s next?

Start as you mean to go on. Don’t rush into things. Plan your folders that you’re going to use and formulate a good working system for your images. It’s much easier to put some time in at the beginning of a project than it is to start correcting it towards the end when the print deadline is looming! Below is an example of a recent project folder I worked on for a catalogue.

As you can see everything is in one folder. This is vitally important if you want to move machine, or if the printer requests you send the document (InDesign or Quark) rather than a PDF. I’ve also included a FONTS folder with all the fonts I’ve used for the document. I always send the fonts over to a printers because the less chance you give the printers for mistakes the more likely your going to get the work back and be happy with the results.

The LINKS folder contains all my images that are linked to in the document. When saving your images try not to use unusual symbols in the title. Also avoid spaces and / (forward slashes). Some servers won’t like your filename if you do this (I learned the hard way, you don’t want to have to rename lots of files and re-link the files in your document). Instead of a space you can use an underscore.

You could also have a .txt file called “Read Me” in the folder that has all your instructions for the printer in such as bleeds, slugs, colours, spot varnishes etc.

Lastly is colour. Unless you have a very expensive calibrated monitor do not trust your screen! The way I do this is to find the colour I like on the screen, then I will find a very similar looking colour in a swatch book. Once I’ve found a colour, I look at the CMYK value of the colour and change the colour on the document to the CMYK values in the book. It may look the same, it may look radically different, either way, what you send to print should look like the colour you originally chose.

This isn’t a definitive guide just a quick run through which will hopefully help you out. You may have a different system that works better for you. Just remember to keep things organized and don’t give the printer any room for error, that way if the job comes back and its no good, it won’t be your fault!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 6:21 am and is filed under Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.