Crazy Busy Print Shop

Good Morning!

I have not had a chance to write in the last few weeks, it has been crazy busy here at Clinton Press! Which is absolutely wonderful. Clinton Press is a small to medium size print shop. We have a total of 12 people here.

We have over the summer started a full fledge mailroom. When things get busy in the departments, all of our employees are skilled and talented, we all work in each department to help out. We have bindery, shipping, prepress, digital and mail. Here are the employees names and titles.

Clint Jackson: Owner/President

Jim Fredrick: Plant Manager, Estimator, CSR

Kevin James: Salesman, and Print Specialist

Nikki McDonald: Prepress Manager

Kathy Shelton: Prepress Assistant Manager

Billy Austin: Digital Print Specialist/Operator/Shipping

Ralph, Mitch, Oscar: Pressmen

Frank: Bindery Specialist

Ike Thomas: Mailroom/Bindery/Delivery

Sharon: Mailroom

Since we have been crazy busy here, we have to change around to different departments to help out, I will get back on schedule starting today to write more tips and trick and prepress issues on my blog.

Thanks for reading! Have a great Day!

Nikki

Converting Pagemaker Files into Indesign

Hope everyone had a great Labor Day! I hate winter and now that Labor Day is gone, I know it is on the way.

Every now and then I receive a Pagemaker file and have to open it in Indesign. We used to have Pagemaker but do not have it now because it is almost obsolete. Of course when you open it in Indesign you will definitely have some type re-flow and missing links, etc.

I know it can be a mess working with these files, especially if there are a lot of pictures and links involved. Just make sure you have some lasers to look at to determine what re-flows and how the images are placed on the pages.

Sometimes the images will change inside the boxes when you update the missing link in Indesign. Just go to one page at a time to compare it to your lasers. If you do not have a printed sample, let the customer know of the chances of re-flow, etc.

Just know Indesign has a feature to convert Pagemaker files, it justs takes a little work on the prepress end to fix the file after the conversion.

Once you get it converted it should be a breeze after that! Good Luck!

What not to send the Printer....

Okay,

Here is a small list of things not to send your printers. If you do you may have extra prepress time and more money spent.

1. Don't send low resolution pdfs, it will look like crap when printed.

2. No files with crop marks.

(Most printers have their own imposition program to put them on for you)

3. Never ever send a logo that you have saved on a spreadsheet, Word Document, etc.

(If you send the word document, look for the logo that is in the doc,

it should be a jpg, tif, or eps)

4. Don't send in RGB photos or pictures.

(It can be time consuming if they have to convert to grayscale or cmyk)

5. Don't send Publisher files. (If you have no choice, be sure to package it before sending to printer, otherwise fonts and images can be missing)

6. Don't send gif files or bitmaps

(They are usually web based art at low resolutions for websites)

This is just a few, I will probably add to this later, just call the printer first and ask what to send to save on money and time before you get in the prepress department!