For DTP People
(and
other brave adventurers into electronic print..) For DTP People
(and
other brave adventurers into electronic print..)
ACTUALLY INTENDED 
This collection is a compilation of tips
from many sources. As a sales rep for a commercial printer
(Altman Printing Company), I have personally experienced most of
these situations. If I had had something like this to give to
each of my clients in the beginning, it sure would have made
everyone's life a little easier!! Some of the tips below should
be added to the back of your DTP Bible! If you don't follow some
basic rules -- sooner or later you will realize:
Just because it comes up on your screen real pretty, and it prints to your laser printer just fine --- doesn't always mean that it is going to output correctly from a high-resolution imagesetter or print the same way!!
If
you're creating a publication that will be
translated into another language, create a second
black (spot color) called Text Black for your
QuarkXPress or PageMaker color palette and apply
that color, either manually or by including it in
style sheets, to all text that will be
translated. That way, the translators will only
have to create one new set of film, which can be
stripped together with the previous color
separations for the new print run.
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If you look back nostalgically to the days when typographers provided you with galleys, you may appreciate fine typography-appropriate hyphenation, word spacing, kerning, and tracking, as well as a trained eye watching out for loose lines, widows and orphans. Some would argue that desktop tools lack the sophistication of yesterday's dedicated typesetting systems. QuarkXPress has many refinements; you just need to know where to look. Four common areas of improving Quark-based typography are:
First, you may be disappointed with the kerning of your typography. There's a good chance it isn't even turned on for type of under 10 points. That's because Quark's default preferences don't make use of a font's built-in kerning pairs except for type set above 10 point. You should change this default setting to seven point, in Typographic Preferences under the Edit menu. You will probably notice a significant difference.
Second, we believe Quark's Justification space settings are also set too loosely. The XPress settings are 85%, 110%, and 250%, referring to the minimum percentage of a space band between words, the optimum, and the maximum. The first and last are used to determine line breaks for justified type only; the optimum setting refers to preferred spacing for justified as well as flush left, right, or center type. We prefer the standard settings to be set to 85%, 95% and 105%. This forces a tight, professional look. While you are at it, you might create some additional settings that are even tighter. You can apply these to paragraphs that have a widow in order to tighten them up slightly, with the goal of bringing the widow up to the prior line.
Third, you can also set your paragraph tracking to improve its appearance. We suggest a tracking setting of -2 or -3 for body text, and more for headlines. You can access these settings in he Measurements Palette, the Style menu, or the Character settings of Edit Style Sheets. Of course, you may also tighten this setting (increasing the negative number) to avoid a widow as well.
Finally, subheads ending up at the bottom of a column or page are an embarrassing problem that's easily missed. A simple way around this: Use the Keep With Next "PARAGRAPH" setting. If you apply this to the paragraph formats of a subhead style, it will always stay with the text paragraph that follows it.
There are other tools for the desperate, such as using horizontal scaling or adjusting leading to make lines fit or widows disappear. We recommend that you avoid these if possible. They are often noticeable and can wreak havoc on your grid. A better idea...just edit a word or two of a paragraph, if you can. You'll often find that to be the quickest way of fixing a bad break, widow, or extra line. (ACME Printing)
DOCUMENTS
& DEFAULTS (QuarkXPress)
|
(ACME Printing)
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| For better print reproduction, use a two-color combination rather than a three- or four-color combination. This is particuarly important in the lighter shades where a small amount of density change or register shift can alter the appearance of the color dramatically. |
| Clean oranges, violets and greens are very difficult to match in four-color process printing. To get a vibrant, clean and matching color (such as a specific logo color) you should strongly consider using a fifth SPOT color to achieve really decent results. The increase in cost can be well worth it! |
| Colors that closely resemble the four primary process colors and dirty, muted colors reproduce well in four-color process printing. |
| Fluorescent and Metallic colors CANNOT be achieved using four-color process printing. Again, if you have to have one of these colors, try adding a fifth spot color. |
(Acme
Printing)
Back
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Contents Table When
preparing images for duotone, tritone, or
quadtone printing, you must set the screens
to different values so that the inks don't print
directly on top of each other. In Photoshop, set
screen values before you save the file as an EPS
file, and PageMaker will defer to Photoshop's
settings (make sure you keep color names
consistent across applications). Choose Page
Setup and click on the Screen button. Enter the
screen values for each ink you will print-90
degrees apart for a duotone-and save as an EPS
file, selecting the Include Halftone Screen box.
If you output through QuarkXPress, save the EPS
file without saving the screen values. In
QuarkXPress, go to the Edit Colors dialog box,
select each color used in your duo/tri/quadtone,
and click on Edit. In the dialog box that appears
is a Screen Values pop-up list of the names of
the process colors; assign your duo/tri/quadtone
inks to values other than process black so that
they don't print on top of one another. (If
you don't feel competent to handle this important
techical aspect, just be sure to tell your
printer / service bureau to check this for you --
it may cost a little more, but it can be well
worth it!) (ACME
Printing)
To set your own traps, you can work within the
applications program or you can use a dedicated
trapping program. Many applications --
QuarkXPress, Adobe Illustrator, Aldus Freehand --
offer tools for trapping, but
you need to understand how the tools work and how
the applications interact. For
instance, if you import an Illustrator drawing
into your Quark file, you cannot use the Quark
tools to trap objects in the drawing. You must
perform the trapping within the original
Illustrator file. And Quark will not take the
graphic's color content or boundaries into
account when trapping native Quark elements to
it.First, see if your printer has a dedicated program that will perform the necessary trapping and can handle all the work from the finished job file. This is the best solution, producing more professional results, and avoids some pitfalls caused by manual trapping within the application program.
There are two types of blends: object-oriented and bitmap. The first, object-oriented, are generated in programs like Adobe Illustrator, Aldus Freehand, or QuarkXPress. These blends can be problematic: their steps are just too perfect. Your eyes are naturally drawn to the transition from one perfect step to another.
The solution?
For Illustrator or Freehand users, keep your
Blends to a net change of no more than 75% from
end to end. A blend that starts at 10% and ends
at 80% is much less likely to band than one that
begins at 0% and ends at 100%.
Additionally, if you are using a service bureau, set your screen angles in spot colors to cyan (15¼) or magenta (75¼). This reduces the banding effect.
The second type of blends is bitmap, which are generated in Photoshop. If you create a bitmap blend, add a pixel or two of noise (found in the filter menu) to the selection to avoid those nasty stairsteps.
Page layout file
(if applicable)
Live EPS files
(plus) the " parent file" in the case of Aldus
Freehand) and other imports, and all live scans and images.
All fonts used --
BOTH Screen & Printer versions. If you use a font in an EPS
art file (like a logo, and you haven't outlined and converted to
art - then PLEASE send those fonts also.
Hard copy proof (if
multicolor, then send color-separated copy also -- if you can't
get it to print out on your laser, then we will too), at 100%, of
latest version of file. NEVER send the
original documents. Send a copy in case it
is damaged in transport or is a victim of disk failure.
Any original
artwork or transparencies needing to be scanned.
Transmittal form
with names of files, fonts, line screens & emulsion
information, expected delivery time, etc.
No superfluous
material! If it's not needed for the job, don't send it.
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Please let me know what you think of
this tips page (Lord knows that its nowhere near compete!)
Let me know of any useful tips that you'd like added.
You can reach me by e-mail at:
jr@teleplex.net
