PrePress Day 3

I’ve been working the closest with Mark, who having been in the printing industry for over 10 years, has a lot of information to give and give and give. I mean that in the best way possible because we both get to talking about different terms, functions and procedures and realize we’ve gone to far and need to get back to the project. He lets me jump right in and start working with jobs and making edits and checking correct file set up.

First things first, if there is a PDF provided by designer check to see if bleeds are set up. If they are, standard “ 0.125, then you’re in business. If not then it’s crap. Move on to the original file provided and then start making the PDF from there. InDesign has amazing features that I’m learning about created strictly for the printing process.

Load the provided fonts onto your system because you’re going to need them to make your new PDF. Load the original file and check for errors. Make sure overprint is turned OFF! Remember overprint? It will print black on top of any color, such as black text over a graphic, which can change the look of black.

Check paper size. Yes, I said it.

Check the colors. Is your ENTIRE file set up in CMYK? You’ll be surprised how those images we all bring into Illustrator have RGB in it and do not convert even though the file is set up in CMYK. All spot colors are converted to process printing. So when picking from the Pantone palette, if you are not going to be using 5 color process printing (or however many spot colors you want) you need to convert Pantone to process because it can greatly change the way it comes out on the press.

After original is all cleaned up then it gets printed to the PDF printer. Print single pages! No reader spreads. I’m still not used to saying print to Acrobat because it never physically gets printed, but it flattens your file into one unit. No more layers or transparencies. Pitstop is the plug-in for Acrobat that allows for some manipulation of files.

Coming up, actual printing proofs and assembling proofs!