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Below is a list of the problems print shops have most-frequently with files they received from their customers. Whatever you do help avoid the problems below will make it easier for the print shop to get your job on press as rapidly and economically as possible:
- Application and file compatibility problems
There are many different applications used to create the docments that are sent to print shops. Each of these applications has its own proprietary file format. Most of these applications have been in use for many years and exist in many versions (the current version of Corel Draw is 14). To complicate things more, some applications are availble only for Mac, others only for PC and others for both. As you can imagine, print shops frequently have problems have problems opening files prepared by their customers due to incompatible file formats.
- Application and layout problems
Even when the print shop can open the native file you send them, because the your version of the application used to create the file is different from the print shop's version, the layiout may appear slightly differently than it did for you. This sort of problem most frequently occurs with text, which can flow in a slightly different way than you wanted, and with transparency.
- Missing fonts
One of the greatest benefits of the DTP revolution in the past 20 years has been to make the world or typography to everyone. There are tens of thousands of fonts in use today and it is impossible for any print shop to have all them on hand. It is crucially important that you supply the fonts you use in your document to the print shop.
- Incorrect color spaces
Most images are available in 1 of 3 color spaces: Grayscale, RGB and CYMK. All printing presses use 4 primary colors, CMYK plus a small number of "special colors". It is important for you to try to match the color space of the images in your documents to the colors that will be used on press. If the images you provide are not in the correct color space, then the print shop will convert them for you.
- Low-resolution images
You can see much more detail in a printed image than you can see in the same image displayed on a computer monitor. If you imaginge an image that measures 1-inch x 1-inch printed on paper or viewed on screen, the file used for printing will contain much more information than the file used for display and the file size will be much larger.A problem can occur when you take an image file that was designed for display on screen and insert it into a document that will be printed. In this case, the image will not contain enough detail to make the printed image look sharp. What is worse, smooth lines in the image may well appear with jagged edges.
- Missing bleed
Your job may well be printed on a larger sheet of paper and then trimmed down to the final size on a guillotine. In order to compensate for possible imprecision in the trimming process, images are enlarged by 1/8" so that they extend into the area that will eventually be trimmed off. This extra portion of the image is called the bleed.
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