With a million and one details, from file formats to ambient humidity, affecting the end result of any printing project, it's no wonder you may have some questions about the best way to plan and prepare your job. At CSI Printing, we would rather spend the time up front to make sure you know the options available and warn you about variables , than ever have you disappointed with a job. The following lists will always be works in progress; while some questions have reoccurred every one of the 60 years CSI has been printing on paper, new technologies and new substrates (some paper is really plastic!) continually keep us on the learning curve.
If you have a question that's NOT answered here, PLEASE use the e-mail links on our Contacts page to ask your rep, or call if it's urgent. When you're uneasy about something, remember that in our business, there are no stupid questions: It's better to have your friends at CSI suspect your ignorance, than to have several thousand copies of some piece that proves it!
Prepress and Printing (return to top)
The fonts supplied on your computer (TrueType) are not suitable for printing--they are essentially smoothed bitmapped fonts, supplied in fixed sizes. Professional type fonts (Type 1) are completely scalable, because they are actually computed from algorithms that determine their size and weight (requires installation of Adobe Type Manager). The difference is obvious to a designer, but many users don't understand that a bold version of a font is actually a complete typeface in a Type 1 font, and not just a heavier version, drawn on the fly by your computer, of the same face. In fact, some typefaces have many weights available.
Type 1 fonts are sold by numerous type houses (ex. Adobe's Type Library, Bitstream), and have both screen and printer fonts as files that you must supply with your document. The reason you must supply your own fonts is to allow the type foundries control of the copyright--Adobe offers over 2500 fonts, and each is painstakingly drawn and refined before being offered for sale.
Some ISPs limit the size of files that can be sent as attachments to under 2MB, in order to provide a higher level of service to all users. Since documents that are going into prepress are often over 100MB, e-mail is often not an effective file transfer method. Larger files should be sent on removable media, such as Zip or Jaz disks, or via the Internet using the standard File Transfer Protocol (FTP). In our WebLink area, there is a link for customers to our FTP site. If you have a relatively small file that you think can be e-mailed, you can compress it using a utility such as StuffIt, PCZip, or other compression software.
Well, besides the document itself, we need all the files that are referenced or used in the document. A partial checklist would include images, fonts, logos and other graphics. Any checklist for getting a file ready for electronic imagesetting (what we call a preflight checklist) ought to include the most obvious, but least well-remembered utility you have: spell check! You can save time, expense and aggravation with this valuable tool. Collect your files by type into folders, such as fonts, images, graphics, and double check that the names on the files are correctly matched with their file names in the document. For a copy of our preflight checklist as a handy pdf, click on this link.
Since our job is to transfer your electronic document into several thousand printed images, it really helps to see what you intended. Send us a paper "dummy," so we see how the job should be assembled and folded. We're not sure how these miniature pieces got their name, but folding up a piece that's printed front and back and then discovering that there's a problem can sure make you feel like a dummy! And make sure you send along the last, approved laser copy of the content--we proof against that, to make sure there aren't any text re-flows or other surprises.
Let us do the work! Trapping is a technical adjustment to the mechanical art, and for the best product, it should be done taking into account our presses. Some software has an automatic trapping function, but generic traps may not be right for the specifics of your job. We would prefer to set the traps ourselves, after looking at each case where trapping is needed. Why do we need to adjust that job you just approved? Good question.
On press, the ink spreads just a little (called "gain"). And each sheet can stretch or shift just a hair as it goes through the press. So in order to have the plates set up to take into account the registration tolerance of printing, we add and subtract very tiny areas where colors butt, encircle or entrap one another.
For example, imagine a circle of yellow inside a block of blue. If that circle shifted upward, there would be a white area at the bottom, and a green area at the bottom. To provide some tolerance, we enlarge the yellow circle, just a little, all around. In this way, the blue area traps the yellow, and the result is a smooth, error-free print job.
We all get used to seeing images on screen, and forget about the specifics of the graphic files. The GIFs and JPEGs that load quickly on the Web do so for a reason: they're low resolution, compressed images. Your 72 DPI images are perfect for monitors that can't show higher resolution--but those RGB colors are going to shift around in a CMYK interpretation, and we need at least 300 DPI (at 100% of the size you are printing), typically TIFFs, Illustrator files or EPS for reproduction. One way to manage this headache is to have your Web art created using higher resolution, and then use low-res images on the Web. Then you'll have what you need when you're ready to use those images in a brochure or data sheet.
One common error is compressing images and sending us the compressed images for output. In large data files such as photographs, compression can remove valuable information, and can cause errors in the output of the imagesetter (especially LZW compression). Another error is including outdated image files, such as a logo that was created in Illustrator 88. If you must use old files, import them into a current version of the software, and then provide us the "updated" file.
Ideally, you want to crop and size the photograph before you send it out for scanning. In this way, the file size is kept as efficiently small as possible, and there is less chance for error or misinterpretation. When you spec the scan, make sure you understand how you are going to use the photograph, and what kind of stock and printing you plan. A rule of thumb is to scan at about twice the DPI you plan to use as a line screen, for example, printing at a 150 line screen, you would scan at 300 DPI. However, this is assuming the image is cropped and scanned! If you scan a full-length portrait at 300 DPI, and then decide to crop down to head and shoulders, you only have enough information in your scan for about a 45 line screen--coarse and grainy reproduction, at best.
For scans, we prefer transparencies (slides), rather than reflective art (prints). And of course, larger formats give you lots more information for the color reproduction.
Again, we're dealing with a question of resolution. The new digital cameras with multi-million pixel recording devices can do a fine job…unfortunately, the hype was pretty far ahead of the technology when these went on the market. Another thought: just like having a PC doesn't make an administrative assistant a graphic designer, having a digital camera doesn't give you the same results as a professional photographer. Lighting and composition are essential elements for good images that we can reproduce accurately.
Back when type was set by hand, there was a need for a new vocabulary. In fact, we heard that the reason for calling letters "upper case" and "lower case" is that the capital letters were in the top drawer, and the little letters were in the lower drawer of the type case. Kerning, which actually refers to the little serifs that extend beyond the letter's block shape, is subtracting space between characters, to tighten them up, perhaps in order to draw up a single word, left as a "widow" on the last line, onto a full line. Tracking type is intentionally adding space, which a designer might do with the letters in a subhead. "Leading" refers back to bars of lead that spaced out lines of type--now it just means the spacing between the baselines (the imaginary line the type sits on).
File Formats (return to top)
Getting Accurate Color (return to top)
We wish it were that simple! Typically, you are working on a computer with a monitor that produces colors from red, blue and green phosphors. These colors are actually light that is being projected, or "soft color," not colors that are reflected from light hitting paper, what we call "hard color." There is a lot of science behind color reproduction, but the common denominator for most of us is "four color process." This is the method of simulating the millions of colors in the visible spectrum using only four colors in various combinations: cyan (a bright blue), magenta, yellow and black. This is sometimes referred to as CMYK. To simplify just a little, the 16,000,000 colors that you can see with 24-bit monitors are simulated in the 5,000 colors that can be produced using CMYK. Thus, for critical color matching, such as a corporate logo, you may want to add a special spot color. Spot colors (sometimes called PMS colors in the graphics industry, for the Pantone Matching System), can be matched specifically, and include the strong reds, deep blues, and fluorescents and metallics that cannot be rendered with CMYK.
Also, you may want to watch out for spot Pantone colors which are incorporated in your layout, but which are not anticipated in the print job. Designers can easily pick a great Pantone color which doesn't have a close equivalent in CMYK. Make sure that you are choosing colors from a CMYK palette when you design a piece, and you'll always be pleased with the piece on press.
Proofs are intended to show you an approximation of what your job will look like on press. You may have a color inkjet printer in your office, and you would immediately recognize that the colors are much too vivid, too contrasty and that photographs have poor resolution, compared to a printed piece. Our objective is to have a full range of proofing technologies--including digital color proofs, WaterProofs, Cromalins and our new XP-4 proofs, that can show you the halftones in place--all in order to simulate the end product. After all, printing is actually a complex manufacturing process, using many skills and technologies, and it's not easy to anticipate the end result!
There are three places where you can alter or adjust the color: as you adjust the graphics on your computer, when we do the prepress work, and when the job is actually on press. Use the experience of your rep to help you understand how to adjust the color. For example, when you are incorporating photography, the "loose color" proofs are the first look at the separations. These may be just right, too warm, too cool, too green, too yellow…tell us what you see (and make sure you're using accurately-balanced lighting, such as in our proofing booths), and we can adjust the color balance appropriately, as needed, on each image.
Contract proofs are final proofs--as in final approval and transfer of responsibility, i.e. "contract" --typo correction and design decisions should have been made long before we got your file. However, getting a little warmer or cooler tone to the job OVERALL can be done on press. Remember that corrections to individual images cannot be done on press, so pay close attention to each proofing step as the job progresses.
Our contract proofs are intended to show you color as close as possible to the way it will look on press. In fact, for really critical color decisions, such as when you're printing process color on a colored stock, like a cream or speckled paper, we can even proof the job on the actual stock. We can also proof with very accurate rendering of Pantone (PMS) spot colors--even metallics! Just ask your rep about the best proofing technology for the requirements of your specific job.
Many people have had the experience of buying clothes inside a store, and then discovering that the color shifted outside in daylight. In the graphics industry, we prioritize our color proofing against the color temperature of daylight (5500 degrees Kelvin), since it is the prevalent natural light that we all use. It is also the color temperature of the lighting that professional photographers use in the studio.
As you know, incandescent lighting is more yellow, or warmer, and fluorescent lamps are a little green or blue, unless they are specially balanced toward natural light. With so many different lighting sources (mercury vapor, sodium, etc.) in the business landscape, there needed to be a standard, and natural light is it. This is especially important to consider when looking at proofs or printed pieces, since they both depend on reflected light to generate what we think of as "color." The color of the light source, or the glare of the reflection off the surface of the paper, both have a strong influence on whether or not we think the color is accurate.
Paper and Printing (return to top)
Paper weights are determined by the weight of 500 sheets of its basic size. An offset sheet comes in 25" by 38" sheets, and if 500 sheets weighs 80 pounds, it's now 80# offset. The difference in text and cover weight is exaggerated because cover sheets are smaller than text sheets--about half the size.
Paper weight is an important consideration for designing a piece, especially if you are mailing the piece. Graphic designers are usually more sensitive to the feel of the paper, its relative stiffness and thickness. But here again, you can anticipate that heavier weights are going to add substance to the piece, but with some additional cost.
Work with your designer and your rep to minimize this expense. You can save money by using one of our house sheets, which we contract for in large quantities and are usually very readily available. And your designer knows paper. To the untrained eye, there may be little difference between a Grade A or a B sheet, and especially with the increased use of varnishes and full ink coverage, there are definite cost savings possible without sacrificing the perceived quality of the finished piece.
One further possibility is to simply keep an open mind. High impact and good design don't necessarily depend on having a first-quality paper. Investigate the possibilities.
On the other hand, don't get stuck on a paper in a swatch book prematurely. Some papers are special order stocks, meaning they may be in a warehouse in another city or state, or they may be at the mill, meaning delivery will take 5 to 7 days. Some extraordinary papers are not only very expensive, but you have to wait on a mill run, which can add 6 to 8 weeks to your schedule.
An interesting fact: for tax reasons, mills
run their stocks down very low at the end of the year, so print
jobs scheduled for December and January often require substitute
stocks.
Paper R Us. Like the Inuit natives having a dozen words for
snow, we live and breathe this stuff. Beyond the broad categorical
grades of paper, there are so many options. Uncoated offset.
Premium gloss cover. Hundreds of types of text stock. The #5
groundwood stock that publications use. Dull coated and gloss
coated papers, all with brightness and whiteness and opacity
and holdout…it makes us delirious.
The characteristics of the surface, linen
or wove or felt, impact the feel of the paper, and influence
how the paper works with ink (and the art!). Coating, either
gloss or matte (also called silk, dull and clay-coated), provides
crisper images from the superior ink holdout. Paper grades refer
to large groups of similar papers, such as Grade A coated sheets
that you might see in an annual report. One thing that most
people don't know is that the names of papers and the names
of the colors of paper change. A paper may be discontinued by
one mill and picked up by another, with only a change of name.
Recycled paper incorporates recovered fiber
and/or post-consumer fiber, in varying percentages. Since paper
is typically white, there is a trade-off between the use of
bleaching chemicals to make recycled fibers whiter and the impact
of using trees to make the fiber. Because the paper lots must
incorporate differing kinds or amounts of recycled fiber, many
very nice-looking recycled papers have some variance in their
color from batch to batch. This must be kept in mind as you
think about papers for long-term use.
Paper cuts. No, seriously, we've had some times where we were
pulling our hair out over some interesting batch of paper. Like
the time a truckload of paper arrived on a tight deadline from
out of state, and it was frozen solid--paper that's 30 degrees
doesn't take ink real well!
On occasion, we'll have a customer who has
specified a stock which doesn't perform on press like he or
she expected. This is usually more a matter of inexperience,
for example, using an uncoated stock for text pages and a coated
stock for the cover--there's no way to match color with those
differences in ink holdout and textures.
On a day-in, day-out basis, the issues we
have to work around are grain direction and drying time. On
muggy, rainy days, jobs don't dry quickly, and we can't cut
the paper until it's dry. This can be irritating, and can cause
a couple days' delay in delivery. Some new and interesting stocks,
plastic or translucent papers, can have problems with drying.
Bindery
and Folding (return to top)
Talk to your rep--that's our universal answer to every question!
Pocket folders can be tricky--especially since you are folding
the paper in two different ways, meaning you have to fold against
the grain no matter what. This means you need the right paper
weight, the right grade and type of paper, and you need to understand
how best to print on the paper--can you live with some cracking
in your solid ink coverage? One pocket or two? Standard cutting
die or custom? Business card slits?
These are all issues to consider. Since in
business you see these almost every day, people seem to think
they come from some Folder MegaMart somewhere--but most of them
are custom print jobs that take time and money to do well.
If you think about a simple letter fold, there are three panels
created from a single sheet of paper. Because the paper at each
fold compresses slightly, you can't simply have the sheet in
precisely equal thirds--or at least, you can't do that and have
it mechanically folded. Good mechanicals anticipate this, and
adjust accordingly: the bottom panel is sized 1/16 inch smaller
than the middle, and the middle panel is sized 1/16 inch smaller
than the top panel, which then is sized to cover the stack precisely.
Another factor to consider, especially in
technical manuals, is page creep. If you are producing a 48
page book that folds in half (12 sheets with 4 pages per sheet),
when you fold over the pile and crease it down the spine, you
get a little surprise. The deeper into the pile you go, each
sheet pokes out a little further as you go toward the middle.
Thus, when you trim off those edges to have a nice squared-off
book, the middle sheet has more trimmed off than the top sheet--which
can play havoc with your margins! Page creep can be dealt with
at the layout stage or at the prepress stage, but it's a fact
of life.
We actually try to work backwards in planning a job. That's
how we schedule your work. What's the final purpose of the piece?
It's the finished piece that guides the choice of paper, printing,
varnishing, perfing, folding, and mailing services.
Is it a self-mailer? That impacts how the
fold works, and that in turn affects how much the job costs--a
fold at the bottom only needs one tab on the open end, whereas
a fold at the top requires two tabs. Is your mailer first class
or bulk? Do you have a permit, or will you need to use ours?
There's a million questions, but luckily, your rep has all the
answers.
Well, there ARE a lot of ways you can fold paper, and so eventually,
after doing the same thing over and over, someone decided that
the folds needed names.
If you fold a piece of paper in half, that's
a gatefold. And through the miracle of printing terminology,
it's now a four-pager. One sheet of paper, but once it's folded
in half, we see four pages.
The letter fold is pretty obvious--a three
panel piece, rolled up vertically. This makes it a six-pager.
A roll fold is just a name for the same kind
of fold, except it can have multiple panels, and it can be horizontal
or vertical. Typically, this might have six to eight panels.
A four-panel piece begins to have real possibilities.
You can give it an accordion fold--a zig zag fold. You can give
it two parallel folds--fold it in half and then fold that in
half. And you can give it a double gatefold: take the first
and fourth panels, fold them in to the middle, then fold the
piece together, so that panels 1 and 4 and touching back-to-back.
In all these cases, you have an eight-page folder.
In publications, you have an eight-page signature,
or more typically, you use a sheet twice the size, folded in
half, and then you have a sixteen-page signature. This is where
page imposition is important--it's how you keep straight which
page goes where, and which pages are right-side up or upside
down. It's an area where we shine--and where our investment
in technology makes your job a lot easier.
Mailing
and Fulfillment (return to top)
CSI MailPlus is the answer--it's the center of the direct marketing
universe, pulling together experienced project management, list
sourcing and data processing, secure, bonded list management,
on-demand personalized printing, the ability to manage small
and large format insertions, flexible high-speed dual-zone inkjet
addressing, and a 100% USPS Automation Compliant mail processing
system.
Since you're orchestrating many tasks with
a single deadline in mind, your rep is the key to planning for
success. Our reps can help with mail-friendly paper stocks and
weights, reply device specs, postage classifications, and all
the details you need to take into account in the design. Take
a meeting to let us understand your objectives, and we can help
with specs, budgets and timelines.
The first issue is getting a permit and a barcode master. This
permit has an annual fee, as well as a requirement for paying
postage in advance for the return rate you expect. Of course,
this needs to be coordinated with the USPS--call the local Postal
Business Center at 800-460-1265 for further information. For
the design, you need to understand the requirements for post
cards, including paper thickness and size. Since Business Reply
Mail is expensive (you pay for handling as well as postage),
you want to avoid having oversize First Class postage charged
if you can. Talk with your rep--we'd be glad to help you with
the specs.
You ran into one of two "gotchas:" you either exceeded the anticipated
weight, once you stuffed the envelope, or you violated the expected
1:1.5 ratio on the envelope proportions. The US Postal Service
has strict specifications for proportions of mailing pieces
that make their high-speed automated sorting possible. Much
information, including these specs, is available on-line, at
http://www.usps.com/busctr/, and there is even an on-line guide
to creating direct mail, at http://www.uspsdirectmail.com/.
Many customers are not aware that there are also regional USPS
Business Centers with knowledgeable account reps who can help
you with your direct mail questions, such as obtaining a bulk
rate permit. The number for the Postal Business Center in Austin
is 800-460-1265.
Sure! The easiest way to deal with this is to use one of our
permit numbers, unless you have your own permit. Then, visiting
with your rep, decide on the level of pre-sort services you
want to determine your classification, and we can answer your
question on the spot.
Once you've decided on the size and architecture of your printed
piece, pick your paper stock. Next, get your list count and
decide on your general postage classification--first class or
bulk. With those specifics in place, your rep can make up a
full-size dummy of the piece for determining the weight, and
calculate the cost of the presort and mailing services to support
your goal of getting the best possible postage rate.
There is a new system of national centers for certifying the
deliverability of mailing lists. This NCOA certification provides
you the cost savings of eliminating bad addresses, and it cuts
your cost of mailing, because your list can be presorted, down
to individual carrier routes. We also provide sophisticated
merge/purge services for combining lists, and we can help with
the inevitable problems of inconsistent formatting in data entry.
Another important and cost-cutting service
is that with NCOA and CASS certification, we can inkjet the
proper delivery barcode at the same time we do the address.
This speeds your mailing and qualifies you for a lower postage
rate. Plus, you avoid those tacky day-glow barcode labels the
Postal Service sticks on your well-designed mail pieces!
Other special services are encoding your list,
so that you have a unique identifying number attached to the
individual record, to allow better tracking of the results;
dual-zone inkjet printing, for barcodes, indicia or other promotional
verbiage, in addition to the address; quick turn service on
data preparation; and data entry.
Our preferred format for database management is ASCII, tab delimited,
but Excel files are fine, too. If you are purchasing your list
from a publication or other source, we can accept the list on
almost any storage medium, from diskettes to 9mm tape.
There are many ways of sorting the data that exists on us as
consumers--and many companies make their income by selling these
lists. Unfortunately, ours is a mobile society, with perhaps
a 20% rate of annual list attrition, due to moves, etc. So unless
your list source is a publisher who would be updating the list
on a monthly or weekly basis, you may not have a very accurate
list. CSI MailPlus is a list broker, meaning we have many sources
of assimilating prospect lists, and we would be glad to assist
you in developing a solid and responsive list. List rental means
just that: you are contracting for the use of the list.
You can negotiate for using the list over
a time period, or for sequential mailings, but this will impact
your cost. Many lists are also available with phone numbers
for follow-up activity. The list, however, is the property of
the list source, and there will be control names buried in the
list to prevent unauthorized use--so plan on using your rented
list responsibly.
If you have a response mechanism, such as
a business reply card (BRC) or even e-mail, you can then justify
having those persons who respond to your mailing in your database
for future contact.
