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Written by: Jeff
MacAfee |
In past articles,
ePUB has targeted attention on software packages that should not be
used for professional publishing (i.e. office graphics applications).
Most of these articles only alluded to the fact that software for professional
print publishing exists. It is time to rectify this glaring omission
and spill the beans on what our print vendors really prefer when receiving
your electronic files. This article will not only tell you what software
print vendors prefer, but also tell you why! In a bit of twisted logic,
“WHY” comes first.
When something
is created, using the proper tools (and an understanding of how to use
the tool) not only makes things easier, it is often required. The Mona
Lisa was not created with a hacksaw, primarily because a hacksaw does
not have the capabilities to paint. In the same vein, proper tools for
the print and design world must be capable of producing good printing
art. What is good printing art? Well, the following is the start of
a good list:
*Fonts are the
fourth component of “good files,” but the need for fonts is
beyond the scope of this article.
The print and design
industry has embraced QuarkXPress as the de facto standard for layout
of publishing files. This has been true since the dawn of man, or at
least the dawn of electronic print publishing. Oh sure, Adobe PageMaker
has a following, especially among Windows users, but seems to stay in
Quark’s shadow. Another challenger, Adobe InDesign, has entered
the arena with a powerful promise of tools worthy to break Quark’s
stronghold on the print/design industry; yet, there is still no mad
rush to change. However, as the most recent upgrades to both Quark and
InDesign have been released (5.0 & 2.0, respectively) an even playing
ground has emerged and the trade journals are talking about the potential
for a shift in power. Whether the upstart upends the champion remains
to be seen. Some software packages
have been intentionally omitted. Why, you ask? Well, because of a little
known vendor acceptance rule that states “We only accept Quark,
PageMaker, and InDesign. We don’t accept THAT.” These packages,
such as Adobe FrameMaker and Microsoft Publisher, can produce successful
output but have limited support in the print industry. The reasons for
the lack of support are not important. What is important is that your
software may be the best tool in the world for creating your document,
but if the print community does not provide support, the software does
you no good. Finally, always remember that whatever you do, do not use
Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect for your layout.
For drawing software
packages, a print vendor’s main desire is to receive good, clean
vector line art. Vector line art includes, but is not limited to, text,
maps, logos, line illustrations, charts, and graphs. Regardless of the
software packaged used, vector line art should be saved or exported
as an Encapsulated PostScript (.eps) graphic. Once exported, the .eps
file must be properly placed into a layout file. Remember, no cutting
and pasting allowed. In the print industry, the most commonly accepted
drawing software packages are Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia FreeHand.
Both are very powerful tools for creating vector art, and both are well
supported by the print industry. Drawing software should be used to create images that are resolution independent. This means that a logo, drawn at 2” x 2” can be stretched to 20” x 20” with no loss in image quality. In fact, a vector image can be stretched indefinitely, in theory.
If QuarkXPress
is a de facto industry standard, then Adobe Photoshop is clearly the
industry’s heavyweight champion of the world! Like QuarkXPress,
Photoshop is the standard when dealing with image manipulation, but
it has an even larger market share. According to GPO stats, more than
90% of all work submitted to GPO contains Photoshop images. Whereas drawing
software handles vector files, image manipulation software is designed
to work with raster images (scans or digital photographs – images
made of pixels). A chief difference between image and drawing software
is that with image software, the files are resolution dependent. That
means that if you enlarge a 3” x 3” image at 300 pixels per
inch (ppi) to a 6” x 6” image the resolution of the new sized
image would be 150 ppi. ePUB recommends 300 ppi images for all raster
art (photos) and 800 ppi for all scanned line art. As with the other types of packages, there are image manipulation packages that can be used, but we find the majority of our vendors are most familiar with or utilize only Adobe Photoshop in their shops. Some vendors will support Corel PHOTO-PAINT as well. The key thing to remember is that raster art should be saved as a Tagged Image File Format (.tif) file. Other formats such as .gif or .jpg should only be used for Web images.
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