Prepress question from a Newbie

[equusmedical]

Okay guys,

I have spent a few weeks working on my latest brochure in Xara. I then sent it off to the printer for a proof from a pdf.

He subsequently responded with the following requirements:

a/ bleeds on the job
b/ trim marks supplied ( for registration)
c/ All fonts embedded or supplied.

Now I have sent print jobs before to printers (admittedly with not great confidence about what I was doing) and they have used the pdfs as is and produced what I thought was an adequate job. Resolution, colours, etc. were all fine.

This job is a little different in that it is a DL sized bi-fold, but otherwise unremarkable. My paper sizing is right in Xara and therefore the PDF is the correct size. Admittedly not all fonts would embed so that is something I can correct myself.

What do you think I should do; a) find another printer who will take the pdfs as is (plus fonts supplied) or b) output it in a different way. If so how can I do so?

I have illustrator, photoshop, PSP 9 and pagemaker if that is of any use as well as acrobat 7.0 standard.

Thanking you all in anticipation.

EM

[tonylondon]

Seems like your printer is expecting a page size larger than the final size, with crop marks to show the final actual size that he will cut (and bleed) to.
Could you not mark the extent of the page and change the page dimensions (right-click, options) to make them a bit larger?
Tony

[amoore]

You might also want to convert the text to curves in the pdf. That way you don't have to embed the fonts.

In the PDF Export dialog, that option is on the bottom left on the Objects tab.

[gwpriester]

If you do a lot of print work you might want to consider Acrobat 7 Pro. You can create a PDF file to the page size and add printers marks.

But you can also do this yourself manually.

Trim or crop marks tell the printer where to trim the page.

Bleed is for objects that extend beyond the edge of the page. Printers like to have a small amount of bleed (about 1/8") in case the page does not trim to the exact size. If you do not have any objects that bleed off the page then this is not an issue.

I make my crop marks .25pt and in the case of a 4 color job, assign the Prints on All Plates option. You also need to increase the size of your page to accompodate these crop marks.

In earlier versions of Xara X you can right click and select this option from the Imagesetting flyout. In Xtreme you need to do this from the Imagesetting control bar. (Window > Control Bars...).

Don't worry about a lot of the fancy targets and density bars. Printers all have their own preferences here and can add these at their end.

Gary