Tips to get the most out of your PDF

The most universal form of transferring graphic art is via the PDF (portable document format) file. You can rely on the PDF with great assurance that what-you-see-is-what-you-get. Please pay close attention when designing your document for conversion to a PDF since a PDF is only as good as its source file(s). To make the PDF easier to use on our end, and potentially cost-free on yours, here are a few guidelines when setting up your PDF

• Adobe Acrobat 5.0 compatible (PDF version 1.4)
• Output at Press Quality
• Subset fonts to 0% (no subsetting)
• 0.125" bleed on each side
• No printers marks except crop marks, and only if they are in conjunction with the proper bleed.
• No compression, Bicubic Downsampling
• Any placed raster images are 300 dpi or higher

Other Applications

Otherwise, there is a list of other file formats that we accept, for both Mac and PC, with less rigid requirements. For PC::

• Adobe Illustrator CS4 (please outline fonts)
• Adobe InDesign CS4 (please Package document)
• Adobe PhotoShop CS4
• Adobe PageMaker 6.5
• QuarkXPress 7.0 (please Collect for Output)
• CorelDraw 12.0 (please prepare for Service Bureau)
• Microsoft Office Products (may require additional charges)

For Mac:

• Adobe Illustrator CS2 (please outline fonts)
• Adobe InDesign CS2 (please Package document)
• Adobe PhotoShop CS2
• QuarkXPress 6.5 (please Collect for Output)

Other file formats we accept that are not program specific:

• JPG/JPEG
• TIF/TIFF
• BMP
• EPS
• GIF with limitations
• PNG with limitations

For Freehand, please save as an EPS with fonts outlined before sending.

Questions? Please contact us.

HOW TO GIVE US YOUR FILES

1. Email them to your representative.

2. Use the Send Files link.

3. For extremely large files, we accept CDs, flash drives and other removeable media.

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