Printing EPS?

[daddykirbs]

Hi, I'm a new graphic Artist with limited knowledge of working with a printer (person not machine).

I recently took over the responsibility of laying out marketing material for the company I work for. The guy that did it before was using Freehand, but really didn't have a lot of experience with it other than the simple element changes in template flyers.

I don't know much at all about Freehand so I laid out the marketing flyers in XaraX1. It's really easy to use and I have been working with Xara for over three years (but not for print, just map and floorplan graphics for kiosks).

I spent a good amount of time making these flyers just as my boss wants them. She was very pleased with my ability to make these look nice.

Here's my challenge. I sent the files to the printer as EPS, which is the same format that they recieved before from Freehand. The printer kept having issues with them looking right. He doesn't have Xara. I tried multiple options and nothing worked right. He finally had to print a TIFF export instead.

I would rather not send TIFFs to the printer. I think EPS would be a better format?

Any ideas on why my EPS isn't good enough when the Freehand EPSs were? Is there a setting that I'm not seeing? Does the printer need Xara to make this relationship work http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif ?

I would greatly appreciate any advice. I like my new job and want my employers to believe that I am the smartest graphics person they have ever had http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Thanks in advance

[daddykirbs]

Hi, I'm a new graphic Artist with limited knowledge of working with a printer (person not machine).

I recently took over the responsibility of laying out marketing material for the company I work for. The guy that did it before was using Freehand, but really didn't have a lot of experience with it other than the simple element changes in template flyers.

I don't know much at all about Freehand so I laid out the marketing flyers in XaraX1. It's really easy to use and I have been working with Xara for over three years (but not for print, just map and floorplan graphics for kiosks).

I spent a good amount of time making these flyers just as my boss wants them. She was very pleased with my ability to make these look nice.

Here's my challenge. I sent the files to the printer as EPS, which is the same format that they recieved before from Freehand. The printer kept having issues with them looking right. He doesn't have Xara. I tried multiple options and nothing worked right. He finally had to print a TIFF export instead.

I would rather not send TIFFs to the printer. I think EPS would be a better format?

Any ideas on why my EPS isn't good enough when the Freehand EPSs were? Is there a setting that I'm not seeing? Does the printer need Xara to make this relationship work http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif ?

I would greatly appreciate any advice. I like my new job and want my employers to believe that I am the smartest graphics person they have ever had http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Thanks in advance

[Albacore]

Do a search in this site for your problem. So many of us have had problems printing with Xara X you will get a huge amount of information on the subject so do not be surprised.

The way that I have done it before when I was in your position was to export your drawing as an AI eps. with shadows and any bitmap effects taken out like bevels and some transparencies and then import that eps file into FH as it is quite good at this type of import. If when importing into FH the drawing does not display and you get a rectangle with two diagonal lines relook at your original drawing in Xara X1 and see if there is any other effects causing the problem.

FH is shadow tool is not the best, it can not hold a candle to Xara's, so I would style your drawings so that whwn you finish them off in FH that your boss is not disappointed.

Just to make it worst for you if you are using FH MX and the drawing or output to the printer contains a lot of different fonts FH MX has some bugs in this area on eps which stops the text being printed. Use export eps with TIFF preview in FH as your output for the printers as they can see if there is any problems before the negs are made.

[daddykirbs]

Thanks for your reply, and I will do a search.

Although I think maybe I communicated something a little unclear. My goal is to not use FH at all. I'm trying to do the layouts and exports exclusively with Xara.

The old layouts were in FH. They were then exported to EPS format and sent to the printer. The printer had no problems with these EPS files.

I made the new layouts in Xara. I too exported to EPS. The printer DID have a problem with these EPS files.

I can beutifully print directly from Xara, but the guy that is doing the printing of the flyers does not have Xara. He should either buy the program (cheap enough) or I need to find an export format that he can work with.

Thanks again.

[John Rayner]

Check with your printer and see if they will handle a PDF file? If so, print to that. either this xaraone workbook, or the last one delt with printing to a PDF which is something that is even better than a PSD.