on 9 April 2009Like so many other everyday tasks, printing documents is something your Mac setup can handle as a matter of course. Whether you use a laser for high speed and crisp text, or an inkjet for photorealistic colour, today’s desktop printers are amazingly capable. Even so, the time will come when you need to go beyond what they can handle. That’s when you need to take the plunge into the world of commercial printing.
There are many things a print shop can do for you that you can’t do yourself. Quantity is an obvious example: running off a couple of hundred pages on a desktop printer is a chore, and a couple of thousand would be impractical. But even if you only need a modest number of sheets, you’re limited in the formats you can print. Sheets larger than a certain size won’t fit through the printer, while very small ones, such as business cards, are difficult to load reliably. And if you need pieces folding, cutting, stapling or varnishing, you’re on your own.
Fortunately, it’s a lot easier and cheaper than it used to be to send digital documents to press. Here’s how to go about it.
Litho vs digital
Until recently, almost all everyday commercial printing was done using offset lithography – ‘litho’ for short. Litho is still very popular, and much more efficient thanks to ‘computer to plate’ machines, which make printing plates directly from digital files. But for less than several hundred copies, the setup costs are still expensive.
Digital presses are the solution for short runs. The most common types include HP Indigo, an ink-based technology (though very different from inkjet), and Xerox DocuColor, basically an overgrown laser printer. Digital processes have their weaknesses: HP’s ElectroInk doesn’t bond with the paper in the same way as litho inks, so it can rub off more easily, while Xerox’s toner can crack on folds. Pale tints and subtle gradients may not look quite as smooth, and there are limits on the papers and finishes that can be used. But the technology is improving steadily, and for most purposes digital is fine. Most importantly, it means you don’t have to order thousands of copies – though printers may still be reluctant to price for very low quantities.
Today’s print shops typically operate both digital and litho presses, and almost all are accustomed to working with Mac users. Look up ‘printer’ in your local BT Business Directory or in the Yellow Pages. Some will be fully independent companies; others trade under brand names such as AlphaGraphics, Printing.com and Prontaprint, but they’re franchises rather than branches, so you’re still dealing with a local business that depends on customers like you.
If possible, pop round and have a chat. Ask to see examples of stock, print and finish: that is, the papers offered (you can always ask for others to be ordered in), the methods available to print onto them, and options such as varnishes and laminates that can be added. Seeing these in the flesh makes it much easier to tell what you want than looking at a list of specs.
You’ll generally send the print job itself, however, via email or through a web interface. And that raises the question of whether your printer really needs to be local. On the web, you can quickly find and use print providers all over the UK – and beyond. Local suppliers such as Wellington Press in London, Cypher Digital in the Lake District and Greenprint in Edinburgh have customers all over the country. Services such as ClickClickPrint.com, e-digiprint.com, PrintingDirect.com and TradePrint.co.uk have been set up specifically to provide national web-based ordering, while branded websites such as www.printing.com show a full range of products which you can then order from your nearest franchisee. Competing with all of these are companies such as Pixart.it, based in Venice; despite the current euro exchange rate, their prices are well worth a look.
What you can print
Print jobs fall into a few basic categories. Flat documents are simplest, ranging in size from business cards to posters. Add a fold and you’ve got a leaflet, invitation or greetings card. With sticking, you can produce a presentation folder or various simple packages. Multi-page documents such as brochures and magazines require binding: either saddle-stitch (stapling) for small numbers of pages, or perfect binding (where the edges of the pages are glued within a cover, as in MacUser) for more. Media such as T-shirts, mugs and three-dimensional packaging are beyond the remit of a litho/digital printer, and for those you’ll need a specialist flexographic or screen printer.
Full colour is the norm these days, and most jobs are printed CMYK, meaning all the colours are produced using the same four inks. Spot colours, also known as ‘Pantones’ after the most popular colour specification system, can be used if you need areas of solid, flat colour, but it’s no longer cheaper to print a couple of spots than CMYK, and you should only take this route if you really need to – and know how to set up and output spot colours in your software.
Stock will be matt, satin or gloss. There are thousands of papers to choose from in each of those categories, but your printer will have a standard range to quote on and should be happy to provide samples. You can specify your own paper, but it’ll need to come from a company your printer can order from (try searching for ‘paper merchants’) – it’s no good walking in with a box of A4 from Smiths, because it won’t go through the press – and there’ll be a minimum order.
Every print shop will offer a number of special finishes, and may be able to achieve others by sending the job out. Thermographic printing uses a special ink which expands when heated, creating an attractive raised effect, often used (as a spot colour) for fancy text or logos. Laminating adds a plasticised coating to a whole sheet – nothing like the heavy laminates used for security badges, but a subtle matt finish that’s also useful for protecting digital print from scuffing. Then there’s varnishing: a basic ‘machine varnish’ is almost invisible, and used mostly to seal the ink, while a ‘UV varnish’ (set using ultraviolet light) is what you want for a rich, glossy appearance.
Spot varnish, usually UV and sometimes offered under brand names such as StarMarque, means only certain areas get the glossy finish. It’s an excellent way to create a high-quality feel, as long as you choose the right paper (your printer will advise). You’ll need to supply an extra spot colour plate to show where the varnish goes. The easiest way is to duplicate your layout, create a spot colour swatch, apply this to all the elements you want varnished, delete all the other elements, then output this as a separate PDF, ensuring spot colours are set to output without conversion. Alternatively, tell your printer what parts you want varnished and let them set it up; this may involve a small extra cost.
Don’t overlook the possibility of combining commercial and desktop printing. To send a personalised mailout to 500 customers, you could get 500 A4 sheets printed in full colour, pre-creased to fold into three, then run these through your laser printer to add each customer’s details (perhaps as a mailmerge from Word) and finally take a few minutes to fold them. The only catch is that some types of digital print don’t play nicely with some desktop printers. Colour from many digital presses will smudge when exposed to the heated wire that’s used to set laser output, while print from toner-based presses may crack when the paper is fed around an inkjet printer’s rollers. Litho is safest, but talk to your printer about what you want to do.
Alternatively, many printers will mailmerge for you if you supply a file containing your recipients’ details along with the artwork. ‘Variable printing’ is an option on many digital presses, and printing a thousand different pages may not be much pricier than printing them all the same. Again, talk to your printer.
Pricing it up
Print buying is a profession in itself, but you shouldn’t need advanced negotiating skills to get a fair price. One thing that can be confusing is the huge difference in price between apparently quite similar formats. Some items are simple to print and very often requested, so printers vie with each other to offer the lowest deal, while others are less popular and a pain to set up. For example, you’ll see great prices and quick turnaround on large quantities of ‘promo cards’ – thick, glossy flyers, typically postcard size (A6), printed in full colour on both sides. Shopping around, you can get 10,000 for around £150. If you want a folded greetings card, however, you could pay the same amount for just 100.
The first lesson here is that you should price up your printing before you start designing. The second thing to keep in mind is that there’s little point trying to figure out what one job should cost based on another. Instead, go online and get quotes from several websites for the exact specs you want. Most of the printers mentioned in this article publish prices online, along with many more. For example, Printing.com has a particularly helpful price guide. It’s then up to you whether to go for the cheapest or use the quotes to haggle with your favourite printer.
Watch out for too-good-to-be-true deals on business cards. Check the quality that’s on offer – is the paper weight (thickness) as good as others, for example? – and read the small print: complaints have been received about certain companies adding unwanted costs such as ‘subscriptions’ to cheap or even free business card offers.
The more customisation you want, the more you’ll pay. Non-standard sizes will add a few percent; cutting to a unique shape will incur a hefty setup fee. Try to find a standard product that’s near enough to your unique idea. For example, Printing.com offers a choice of two dozen cardboard folder styles, from around £1 per unit for the minimum order of 500. If none of these suits, you can design your own template for £100 extra.
Many print jobs are zero rated for VAT, saving you 15% if you’re not VAT registered; printers should explain the VAT position on each type of job they quote for.
Getting the job done
Today’s commodity printers prefer you to supply a ‘print ready’ file, always in PDF format. They’ll ‘preflight’ this, catching any technical problems before it goes on press, and a ‘soft proof’ will usually be offered, so you can see on your screen what the printer is seeing before confirming the print run. However, not every potential problem will be visible here, and nor is it the printer’s job to spot any typos in your job or fix any problems – the onus is on you.
If you need a little more hand-holding, the printer can oblige. For some, this is all part of the service, while others will quote a little extra. You’d hope it would include fixing hard-to-spot glitches such as those arising from transparency and overprints – things that may look perfect on screen, but generate unexpected results when output. If you actually need extra work doing on your layouts, such as scanning or retouching photos, that’ll cost extra, charged at anything from £25 to £100 per hour, depending on the skills required.
With PDFs, which are essentially (at least in a prepress context) read-only files, there’s no way to correct many problems except to go back to the original application and re-export the file. Some printers are happy for you to send over your native document – that is, the InDesign .indd or QuarkXPress .qxp file – along with any font and image files linked from it, and output the PDF themselves. This way they know they’re using the right settings for their press and they won’t have to waste their time diagnosing problems. You can use File>Package in InDesign or File>Collect for Output in QuarkXPress to get all the right files together. However, web-based services especially are likely to insist on a PDF. For our tips on creating usable PDFs, see below.
A hard copy proof will give you extra reassurance, but if this is included in the price it may be a basic laser or inkjet proof that won’t show the precise colours that will appear on press. Ask for a ‘contract proof’ if you want to be sure. Alternatively, if you’re checking colours for something like a corporate identity, place the smallest and cheapest digital print order, such as one box of business cards, to see exactly what comes off the press. You could even design a test card with various colors and tints and get it printed for reference, bearing in mind this will only apply to one particular printer’s press.
Allow three to five days’ turnaround for most print jobs, excluding delivery time. In practice, anything can be printed pretty much as fast as you want, but ‘rush’ will at least double the price. Some printers work faster as standard – web-based p81print promises dispatch within two weekdays – or on certain types of job: solopress.com offers leaflets in as little as 24 hours. At the other end of the scale, some printers run low-priced bread-and-butter jobs such as business cards in a weekly batch, so turnaround is pot luck. Formats involving cutting and folding may take a week or more, and any customisation will add time.
All this notwithstanding, if you get friendly with your local printer you may well be able to negotiate quick turnaround when you need it.
Outputting for press
Most print work starts life in QuarkXPress or Adobe InDesign. You could lay out a document in Pages, Word, Keynote or PowerPoint, save it as a PDF, and a print shop might manage to output it, but it’s not a recipe for success. You could create a design in (or import it into) Photoshop and supply it to the printer as a JPEG or TIFF, but however large the file it would normally print at no more than 300dpi, so text and line work wouldn’t be crisp.
Not every PDF file is suitable for printing. Don’t go to the Print dialog and try to use Mac OS X’s Save as PDF command; instead, go to File>Export in InDesign or QuarkXPress and select the PDF option. This will export press-ready PDFs as long as you pick the correct options.
Although whole books are devoted to the intricacies of PDFing, the main thing is to get the basics right, and the presets (not available in earlier versions of QuarkXPress) will get you most of the way. Ideally your printer would tell you what settings to use, but in reality you’re unlikely to get that much help. Either choose the generic Press/High Quality setting or an industry standard PDF format, such as PDF/X-1a:2001. The latter may create larger files with more areas converted to bitmaps, but helps to ensure compatibility.
When you select one of these modes in either app, it will embed the fonts in the PDF and automatically convert any RGB images to CMYK, both essential for successful output. Other options to check (shown when you click Options in QuarkXPress, or after you click Save in InDesign) are that the bleed matches your printer’s requirements – usually 3mm – and that both images and rendered transparency (where effects such as reduced opacity and soft shadows are converted to bitmaps for compatibility with older formats such as PDF/X-1a) have an output resolution of at least 300dpi. Also note whether your printer needs each page of a long document as a separate PDF.
You can find out more about PDF output from Adobe and Quark.
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