David Lock

I want to get some A5 leaflets printed using a leaflet company (i.e. not from my own manky printer).

Basically the leaflet will have small colour pictures and suitable text. The printers want a pdf file to work from. I have the pictures as jpeg or jpg files roughly 10 - 40 KB size.

I just have a PC running XP but no software to work with or produce a pdf file.

So what is the minimum software I need? Do I have to spend hundreds on Adobe stuff or are there other options?

I have assumed that I would be a complete idiot to spend $99 downloading $999 photoshop packages offered on the net and in numerous spam mails I get?

Thanks, dl

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

Use Word and then download PrimoPDF which is free to create the PDF.

David Lock

Thanks for the quick response. I like the word "free"

I'll have a hunt for PrimoPDF.

d

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

Here you go.

Free PDF Converter - create high-quality PDF from any printable file type

Just print as normal but select Primo as the printer.

Markus

They want a PDF to work from? Things must have changed since I was in the print game. We'd have asked for the original file where you have laid out your leaflet and then we'd have printed to a postscript file and printed from that. Or we would have fired up QuarkXPRESS and copied the layout and output from there.

Have they specified a resolution that the PDF should be output at? if not then you may want to consider a higher DPI (Dots Per Inch) output resolution when you print to PDF. This should mean when it's printed that it looks decent.

It seems odd to me that you'd convert the file to another file (PDF) and then print from PDF, as some resolution could be lost. Surley they have Word and can print from that? One problem that does occur is font licencing, as you may be using fonts they don't have and it's not legal for you to supply them with the fonts, and thus them being embeded in the PDF would avoid that issue.

David Lock

Hi M,

TBH I don't understand what they want. Just that on the phone they said send pdf stuff. They don't seem to accept Word which is all I have!!

Here is the artwork spec which you will understand. I don't

Printing, Leaflets, Flyers, Business Cards, Posters, Stickers, Essex UK artwork

d

Iain Young

LOL

and

None of the quoted file formats are exclusive to Apple, or even really have anything to do with Apple other than various programs can export them

Sounds to me like they are MS phobes. Seems strange that a pro print shop can't handle indexed colour, pagemaker etc as well. I gather that they are cheap? Have you got a print sample of what the final product will look like?

Markus

Very odd indeed. They can't be Mac only as they specify CorelDraw, which as far as I'm aware isn't available for the mac. The other apps are all cross platform and if you're using the latest versions then there should not be any cross platform issues.

Interesting that that don't mention Adobe InDesign, as that's one of the main competitors to QuarkXPRESS. If they have Illustrator and Photoshop you'd expect them to have the CS package, which would include InDesign.

Pagemaker is dead and burried, so I can see why they won't accept that. InDesign and QX may well be able to import the files, but layout changes could occur (seen that myself going from Pagemaker 6 to InDesign 1.0) and that means they'll have to tweak things.

My guess is that they don't want to handle word because the color separtion in it is either missing, or lacking. I've not looked to see if work supports seperation printing, would not surprise me if it did not, it's a word processor, and not DTP (eeew horrible term), let alone a typesetting package.

As to why they won't accept index, RGB, or other color formats is that they will look different when output/converted to CMYK, and they probably don't want to deal with color correction. I'd expect their printer to be CMYK (not sure what normal color printers actually are, they might be this anyway) so again it means no color conversion going on, what is on the screen is what will be on the page, which won't happen with it needing color conversion.

Sound as though this part of the business is just an output house, so they don't want any hassle at all. They simply want to take the file from you and output it, job done. Asking you to print it to PDF will allow them to do just that. fonts and images will be embedded in the file, so they won't need the separate files. They will just open the PDF in ???? (Curious to know what application they'll open the PDF in) and then output it. They are probably just printing direct to paper, so separations won't be needed, even still, if they were needed, you could probably use whatever app it is to print out the color seperations.

David Lock

OK boys, thanks. I think I have absorbed most of that. I am only thinking of using them 'cos they are super cheap and I guess your post/s give a clue as to why False economy perhaps.

Which leads me to ask if anyone has any suggestions for a more user friendly place to do some leaflets and general small print jobs i.e. 1000 number not 100,000.

But I might still like to try some suitable easy-to-use software. Thanks again. d