Print Production

Description

A presentation on how to prepare for an external printing service. Includes a practical demonstration of postscript and PDF production for pre-press and a hands-on printing project. This course would be suitable for technical authors who want to find out more about printing documentation using an external printing service.

Prerequisites

None

Length

1 X 60 minute session

Topics covered

Defining your printing needs
Types of print output
When should you outsource?
Working with an external service bureau or print production house
Types of printing: offset, digital
Types of paper
Inclusion of colours
Types of binding and packaging
Warehousing issues
Sending material to the printing service
The print production cycle

Tools used

MS Word or Framemaker
Adobe Acrobat
Postscript driver

Course materials

PowerPoint presentation
Samples
Course notes

Practical

Participants have the chance to prepare their own project for print production. Includes topics such as:

Creating crop marks in Framemaker and Word
Creating a bleed for marketing material
Printing to a postscript driver
Defining the optimum print resolution and printer settings
Preparing PDF files for print production

Advanced topics

Updating a PDF file and adding notes
Conversion from PDF to text