Preparing Files for Commercial Printing
From Scribus Documentation Project
If you have never dealt with printers, nothing will assure a worry-free experience for printing files commercially better than talking to your printer well in advance. Preventing misunderstandings and making them well aware in advance of your goals will more than likely prevent 90% of the mistakes. If you do not get satisfactory answers shop around. The printing business is competitive. The best offer both technical savvy and good service.
Be prepared:
It always is a good idea to understand as much about the various parameters and requirements that your commercial printer may need to know or make use of with your print job. There are resources in this manual which you should be familiar with as you get your work ready for printing.
Ask questions:
- If they accept PDF, which level? PDF 1.3 (Acrobat 4), PDF 1.4 (Acrobat 5), or PDF/X-3 (ISO Standard)? If they accept PDF/X-3, consider yourself lucky. This type of PDF is the most advanced for commercial printing. PDF/X-3 is expressly designed to assure good color fidelity between systems. If they can recommend specific ICC profiles to use, then even better.
- Will they be converting the PDF to other formats like EPS? Be aware, not all page layout applications are capable of supporting some of the advanced PS3 or PDF 1.4 features Scribus supports. Unless the printer's systems are using PDF 1.4, this is not a recommended solution.
- Can they provide an ICC profile of their printing equipment if color fidelity is critical?
- What is the PS level of their RIP? This can be a determining factor in how you prepare the files. If their RIP is 3015.xxx+, you can be sure their RIP can handle 100% of the features of Scribus. They might not be able to directly answer that, but...
- Do they require an additional bleed area for your documents? It's important for you to know this before you start laying out pages, as it will affect the way you work.
- If there remain unanswered or unclear issues, ask on the mailing list or on IRC. Usually, there is someone knowledgeable who can answer your questions.
