Computer Resources

We welcome you or your independent graphic designer to submit print- ready digital files.  We employ the latest design software from Adobe and Quark and run both Windows and Mac operating systems.

FILE SUBMISSION TIPS

To avoid any additional graphic design or file handling charges,  please keep the following points in mind as you prepare to send your digital files.  These tips will also ensure a faster turn-time for your job!

1.  The artwork should be the finished sized, 1-up on a sheet.  Even if your actual job will print 2-up (or more), we will be able to impose it properly.

2.  If your artwork bleeds, please be sure to give us 1/8″ (.125″) bleed on each applicable side.

(“Bleed” is the term we use to describe an image that appears to print off the edge of the paper.  Due to offset and digital press specifications, this design feature is not technically possible.  We create this effect by printing a larger area and then cutting it to size.)

We accept many different file formats, but we strongly suggest that you submit your file as a PDF.  A PDF ensures that the fonts and images in your file are consistent from computer to computer.

PDF, which stands for Portable Document Format, was created by Adobe in 1993 and has become a printing industry standard for file handling. You can learn more about the PDF format at Wikipedia.

You can create a PDF using the powerful Adobe Acrobat software.

If you are more comfortable with Microsoft products, you can create a PDF using Microsoft Publisher 2010.

We also recommend doPDF as an excellent free PDF converter. Click here to download.

In addition to files from the Adobe Creative Suite, we accept digital files in QuarkXPress, Publisher, Corel Draw, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. If you submit your file in one of these formats, we will save it as a PDF proof for you. This step allows you to check your fonts, images, and layout before we produce your job.

We design with Adobe InDesign because we feel it’s the most powerful design software on the market. We also employ Quark to support our customers who choose to design in Quark. If you need a solution for your own design work, we recommend Scribus as a free page layout software package that is very powerful.

We recommend compression software by 7-Zip if you are sending a very large file or multiple files. This software compresses the size of large files and combines multiple files so they can be sent as one. You would use this software before uploading your file through our ‘Send A File’ page. The compression will make your file upload faster and easier.