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You can save a substantial amount of money by creating artwork for company printing.

If your company is using an advertising agency or a graphic designer to create printed company promotional & marketing material, here is an opportunity to save a substantial amount of money.

If you can master the art of designing company stationery in-house you can supply your own artwork to your printer & save a bundle. There is however much to learn in terms of design skills and how to supply a file in the correct format so your printer can actually use it.

Resolution, file type, fonts, graphics, links and the actual software that what used to create the document are all important issues that need to be addressed. It is best to start with your printer as the software and operating systems (MAC or PC) vary between printers and you need to know what your printer uses.

If you supply artwork in a file or software type that your printer cannot use, do not worry, hem will let you know quick smart that what you have supplied is garbage.

Printers are constantly being supplied with artwork files that they simply cannot use.

Your printer being up front with you is a good thing as some printers tend to accept any type of file then battle on trying to make it work only to find out that they are unable to or they print the job and have it rejected by the customer because fonts have defaulted, graphics have disappeared, tabbing has changed, etc, etc.

A basic rule to remember is this. If you create a document on a PC it will more than likely be unsuitable for offset printing.

Although files created in Microsoft software are fine to print to a laser printer or an inkjet printer they simply cannot be used for offset printing.

Here are some reasons why.

The files in a low resolution format which is fine for viewing on a computer screen or printing to an inkjet printer or a laser printer.

Microsoft software creates the files in RGB (red, green & blue) which is designed for screen or viewing or network printing but if your wanting to print the job CMYK (4 colour process printing) the colours will look dull & flat.

If you are printing the job in premixed ink colours (referred to as spot colour printing) any files from Microsoft cannot be separated into the individual colours for printing

Here are some file types commonly used for transporting artwork.

BMP: Bitmap File

EPS: Encapsulated Post Script

PDF: Portable Document File

PSD: Photoshop File

TIFF: Tagged Image File Format

GIF: Graphic Interchange Format

JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group

All these files can be printed to the average office printer however some files will require specific software installed to be able to print.

a TIFF, GIF, JPEG or a BMP cannot be used for spot colour printing as the colours cannot be separated out. They can however be used for 4 colour printing although the colours will reproduce flatter & duller than normal.

The most common file types used by graphic designers in the printing industry worldwide are EPS Vector files & PSD files.

A vector file is a file that does not reduce in resolution as the output size gets larger. A non-vector file reduces in resolution as the output size increases.

As an example, the resolution of a 200dpi non-vector file of 100mm x 100mm physical size will reduce by half if the output size is increased to 200mm x 200mm.

A Photoshop file output as an EPS is a vector file.

The PDF has become the file format preferred by amateurs and professionals alike as virtually any document can be saved as a PDF from just about any software, and from any platform.

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