Preparing Your Publisher Document for Commercial Printing

Commercial printing is necessary for those projects that require an unusual size, a large quantity, or simply a more professional look. Before designing your brochure, newsletter, business cards, or flyer to print, there are a few adjustments you might need to make to your Microsoft Office Publisher 2007 document.

Color
First of all, choose a full color offset printing company for high quality results that you can count on. Offset printers that use full color print in the four color CMYK model; therefore, you will need to choose colors from the CMYK model. To do this, first set up Publisher for this option. Go to the Tools menu, point at Commercial Printing Tools, and click Color Printing. Underneath "Define all colors as," click "Process colors plus spot colors." Now you can choose to use process colors, which is the CMYK model. Go back to the Tools menu, point to Commercial Printing Tools, and click on Color Printing. Then click on the Inks tab, click the arrow next to spot-color ink you need, and finally click Convert to Process.

Size
Be sure to choose the right page size, which is different from paper size. The page size refers to the size once the paper has been custom trimmed. Go to the Page Setup dialog box to choose the page size you desire.  Once you have designed your document, be sure to stretch the images to extend at least 0.125 inches off the page to allow for bleed.

Fonts
Avoid using coloring texts that are smaller than 18 pt. as they can appear fuzzy around the edges. If you do need to color small text, stick to the primary colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, green, blue, red, white, black) or 100% tint of spot colors. When choosing font types, remember that only those fonts that specifically are named so can truly be bold or italicized. For instance, Times New Roman has a Bold type in the font menu. Other fonts do not have a bold or italic version, which is not a problem when printing on an inkjet but is with a commercial printer.

Images
Use high resolution images so that they will not appear pixilated when printed. The minimum should be 200 or 300 dpi (dots per inch) and maximum 800 dpi. To check the resolution of your photographs in Publisher, go to the Tools menu and click on Graphics Manager. Under "Select a picture," click on the arrow that is next to the picture. Then click Details and in the window the Effective Resolution shows the dpi of the picture. Another tip for images is to link your pictures. The reason is that a printer may need to edit them. To link the pictures, go to the Insert menu, Picture, and click From File. In the Insert Picture box, click on the picture that you want. Next, click on the arrow beside Insert and click Link to File.

Sending
Publisher provides an easy process for creating a PDF or .zip file to send to your printing company. Simply run the Pack and Go Wizard found in the File menu. Whenever it asks how the project will be printed, choose Commercial Press if you are using an offset printer. Ask your printing company if they need you to select any Printer's Marks for them as the Wizard provides this option under Printing Options. Use "Select an item to fix" to check for any needed repairs found by Publisher.

Communicate with your printer for any other considerations that need to be made before you send the document to them. It may seem like a lot more work, but the professional results of commercial printing is definitely worth the effort.

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