PREPARING FILES FOR DIGITAL PRINTING
Please adhere to the following file preparation guidelines to enhance results. Non-conforming files are subject to surcharges.

Supported Applications
We support most computer programs (Adobe and Microsoft) We prefer files be saved and exported as PostScript or EPS, except Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress, native applications which are supported. Press Ready PDFs are encouraged.

Layout/Printable Area
Maximum printable area is 11.5” x 17.5 including full bleed. Make bleeds 0.125” (1/8”). Largest paper size is 12" x 18", up to #100 Cover Stock

Fonts
Use PostScript, Truetype, or Multiple Master fonts. Include all fonts on disk. Choose the precise font. Do not use styles. Example: ‘Times Bold Italic' with font menu and not ‘Bold' and ‘Italic' in the styles menu. Please convert to outlines when possible.

Four Color Process
Digital printing is CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) process. RGB images must be converted to CMYK. 100% black ink coverage and 280% maximum ink coverage.

Pantone and spot color must be converted to CMYK equivalents. * Note Pantone process colors will not exactly match when printed as 4 color.

Scanning/Images
Save all scans at 100% final size at 400 dpi. Minimum resizing is acceptable, but use Photoshop or Illustrator to resize, rotate or skew.

Transparent backgrounds are not supported. Set path flatness to (Blank) when using clipping paths. Save images as EPS or TIFF. Do not save TIFF with alpha channels. LZW Compression is not supported.

Blends/Vignettes
For best results, produce or rasterize gradients in Photoshop. Shorter blends from 1" to 4" perform best with minimum banding. Lighter colors with a gradient change of 0-50% creates better with darker colors improves consistency with less obvious banding.

Flat Tints/Large Areas of Color
Generally, lighter color areas perform more consistent than darker color areas. Reducing solid colors areas to less than 50% screen tints improves consistency. Adding noise 7 to 102 or textures enhances blocks of color.

Black Area Fills
Richer and deeper black areas are achieved by combining 70% each cyan, magenta and yellow with 100% black.

Trapping
Black elements overprint. Traps built in illustration programs are supported. Trapping in layout programs are not recognized.

Highlight/Shadow Dots
The optical highlight is 5% cyan, 3% yellow. An optical shadow is 84% cyan, 77% yellow and 82% black.

Page Positioning
Multiple documents must be provided reader spreads. Position 'multiple-ups' on 8.5" x 11", allowing for bleeds.

Illustrator/Freehand
TIFF and EPS should be placed in QuarkXPress and not in Illustrator or Freehand. Set the printer Resolution to 2400 dpi and enable 'split complex paths' before saving EPS. Placed TIFF and EPS files must be linked and not embedded. Convert type to outline/paths/curves. Include Freehand information in file when exporting to EPS files.

QuarkXPress
Keep picture box polygons simple. Always specify a picture box fill of white for TIFF files and 'none' for EPS or bitmap. Picture boxes, themselves, may be rotated. However, do not skew or rotate inside a picture box.

PageMaker
Set printer resolution to 600 dpi in Page Setup. Set Link Options to link rather than embed graphics.

Variable Data
This is a Quark/MAC function, use the same specs as above. Data is best supplied Excel Tab Delimited Text Files. It's very important that laser copies are supplied also.

Corel Draw
To get the best results, properly do all image work in Photoshop (Photopaint functions are not supported and most likely will not be applied to the image) and import in to Corel Draw. For type, create outlines/make paths.

Process all PMS colors again for best results.

Microsoft Word / Microsoft Excel / Microsoft PowerPoint / Publisher Be aware that these programs convert all colors to RGB. We can convert them back to CMYK but we do not have control on the proper CMYK color breaks. Again convert images to TIFF or EPS format, and when importing graphics from Excel copy and paste them rather than special paste.

Note to Designer:
Corel Draw/Publisher/PowerPoint have definite quality issues but we can print them. Not recommended, but supported. It is best to convert as Press Ready PDF.

PDF
PDF files must be created with correct high resolution specifications - Press Ready PDF. Please ask your digital printing representative for proper settings.