Export format question

[BobMoyer]

I have a sport's team name (nothing copyrighted, just my grandson's soccer team) to which I have added a drop shadow and some depth (using the 3D tool). I would like to take this to a local shop to have it put onto a t-shirt. I asked him what file format he would prefer and he said .svg and mentioned Corel. The question is, will this format allow for the effects that I mentioned? Is there a better file format to save it in? Thanks for any guidance on this.

Bob

[mwenz]

Never used SVG for screen printing and I do a fair amount of it. We have always sent PDFs. Few exceptions.

We mainly use CorelDraw in screen printing and likely they are as well. PDFs do well.

[mwenz]

Bob--another thing.

In the off chance they will be using a bitmap editor such as Photoshop for the actual output to the film or direct to screen, you should use layers to keep the parts separate. So for instance, any bitmap effects should be on their own layers, vector preferably on the top layer if used.

That's about all I can suggest without actually seeing the work. And make sure to talk with them again about the PDF.

Mike

[BobMoyer]

Thank you very much for the quick reply. I saved the file as an svg and as a pdf. In both cases, the text graphic was over the 'white board' area of the screen and when I tried to view the pdf, it also showed with a white background, not just the text graphic. Since I do not have any software that uses an svg file, I could not properly check it. I double-clicked the svg file and it opened a web page and the text graphic was distorted (badly). I wanted to end up with just the graphic similar to a png file. Am I trying to do the impossible?

Bob

Edit: Evidently, we were typing at the same time. I will stop by tomorrow and ask again what he prefers.

[BobMoyer]

This is a jpg of the graphic, naturally the .zar file is a lot better.

Bob

[Egg Bramhill]

Can't say I know a lot about this Bob but I don't think svg is the way forward here. Xara's 3D effects create bitmaps as do drop shadows so all the content is a bitmap. Most print shops can use PNG files these days and as your file is really just a group of bitmaps I don't think svg will make any difference.

One other point, have you checked your logo with Simulate Print Colours, as blue often prints purplish.

EDIT: Have you tried exporting as a .cmx file, which Xara can do. .cmx is Corel's file-type.

[mwenz]

If it is all bitmap effects (like it appears in the image), then ask if they will accept a PNG to then separate. This isn't a big deal in direct to garment printing. Only slightly hassle if they need to use PS to create the separations for the screens (assuming they know how). A bigger deal if they will be using CD.

@Egg,

CMX is indeed an exchange format CorelDraw can use. Just don't try using extrudes and some/many other effects out of Xara products. Like most of the graphic filters, these CMX export filters are incredibly out of date and never worked that well anyway.

In XDP:



Exported with the 32-bit CMX export filter and opened in CD:



Exported with the 16-bit CMX Export filter and opened in CD:



As has been mentioned once or twice, the export (and import) filters desperately need to be updated.

Mike

[BobMoyer]

Thank you both. I will try your suggestions today and see how it turns out.

Bob

[Albacore]

Bob you must know the colour of your son's soccer teams shirt. Use that colour as a background to your text and lock that background using the Page & Layer Gallery then place your 3D extrusion in font of that locked layer in a new layer.

I am not a great believer in using bitmap effects as a output for printing whither it's for a screen print or CMYK printing as the resolution of the effect is not great. You could try using all vectors to get the same effect by copying your original text then offsetting the copy and putting it behind. Convert the back text to shapes (Ctrls+Shift+S) then Ungroup (Ctrl+U) then all you need to do is to make the shape behind look like it's 3D by using the Shape Editor. What I have managed to do here took me under 10 mins. The harder part is to put in highlights as in your drawing. Some people here would use a stroke or a shape and the use the Smoothing Tool to make the stroke/shape more like the the Highlights as in your extrusion but this effect again is a bitmap effect. I like to use a line colour lighter than your initial text which is not shown here.
Sorry didn't have that font on my system.

[BobMoyer]

Thank you, that is a great suggestion, and it has given me several ideas on improving the text graphic.

Bob