Using PMS colors in Microsoft Publisher

When you first create your document in Microsoft Publisher, select the file color mode first before you get started and choose Spot colors: then pick the pms colors you want to use throughout the document. For example PMS 185 Red and PMS spot black. This will prevent spending tons of money for the prepress department at your local print shop from charging a bunch of time trying to fix the document.

When you are finished creating it be sure to package it so that all links are included in the file when you send it to the printer. You can also make a postscript file and use Acrobat distiller to convert the postscript file to a pdf - high resolution for the printer.

Just go to print and in the box at the top select print postscript, save it on the desktop then double click the file on the desktop and it will open in Distiller to create the PDF then save on the desktop again. And there you have it! A high-resolution PDF in 2 spot colors (PMS) to send to your printer! Have a great day!

Creating a later version Indesign (INX) file

Good Morning,

Now that the new CS4 is out and more customers and companies are buying it, we have not upgraded just yet, I have to have customers save an Indesign Interchange file (INX file) so that I can open it in CS3.

In the next steps I will show you how to do that if you have printers, etc that need it in CS2 or CS3.

With the Indesign file open: Go to the File tab at top and select export: then choose Indesign Interchange under the format tab. This will then put the INX extension on the end. Now you can include the packaged file also which will include the links and the fonts, include these with the INX file you send to the printer.

With the INX file they can open in any Indesign version. Woohoo! Have a great day!

FOLLOW-UP TO MY EMAIL HIJACKER

Good Morning,

Well on Monday evening I received an email message from hotmail verifying me as the account holder. They then froze the account until I was able to change the password.

When I finally got into my account, I realized that the hijacker probably got my SS#, we will know soon. They erased my entire contact list, not sure why? I guess that was after they started emailing back and forth with friends and family. They also deleted all messages in the inbox, especially the ones they wrote back and forth. But the good thing was they didn't delete them out of the deleted folder.

I was able to go to each email sent from the Hijacker and get IP addresses. Weird thing is they were all different each time the email was sent from a different computer. Then I went to search for a reverse IP look-up. Okay to make a long story short, the IP addresses were all owned by a man and woman in Nigeria. It gave address, phone number, email address, etc. It even gave a satellite photo of the area the ip address was at. Crazy hu? Some of the IP addresses were located in Nigeria some in Dallas Texas but all owned by the same people.

So what can I do with this information? Well first I complained to the Internet Crime folks, but now I can give them a list of the IP addresses, and since this person god only knows where, at least they can check up on the scammer and hopefully prevent this person from doing it to other people.

So I have had a headache trying to change email addresses, passwords visit banks, etc. Just in case the hacker tries to use the Identity stuff he got off my email. What a nightmare.... Be careful out there on the world wide web.

When I looked on the Internet for the guys name I found out he is on Facebook, Linked-In, has a blog on this blogger site, he is a computer genius and has a bachelor in Science computer degree and writes articles, but this could be someone else stealing his Identity or a ring of people working together to scam others. I have learned some valuable lessons.

Have a great day!

Email Hijackers and Hotmail

Good Morning!

I had a great weekend at the beach actually was 88 degrees on the beach. But on Saturday morning I recieved several phone calls from friends about receiving an email from me.

The subject line was I need Assistance, here is the email:

How`s the weekend going? Hope everything`s alright. I need you to help me out with something. Can i get a loan from you very urgently? I`ll reimburse you under a week, i promise. I need to solve some personal problems at hand, which have been giving me great worries. I`d also prefer if we discuss this issue only through email as i am presently in England for a Job. I`m sorry if i didn`t inform you about it, but pls try and understand.

I`ll let you know how much i need if you are willing to assist. Thanks, Nikki

Crazy hu? Well then I found out later that my hotmail account which I've had for 10 years had been hijacked, taken over. I could not even sign on to my account, they changed the password, secret question and answer, etc. I have learned a hard, valuable lesson and this is probably the beginning. I have important information in the email folders.

I have realized how stupid it was to leave some of the information in my hotmail account now. Since hotmail is a free account there is no customer service person to call. The bad thing is you have to fill out this long drawn out form to possibly prove you are the account owner. Which I have done 2 times now, still no response. I am mad and upset over this and the hacker/hijacker has extremely important information about me, and probably my SS# also.

I reported this to the government Internet Crime Complaint Center. I think this was also in the news last week. So I am done with the hotmail accounts and I will probably never see some of the files I kept in the email, some I backed-up others I didn't.

This is just a warning to let people know about what is going on out there in cyberspace.

The person asked my friends to wire money to a western union in London. Be careful on the web and changed your password often! I will let you know in the future what comes out of my situation.

Have a great day!

Nikki

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!