Preparing and Submitting Your Print Job
Here's everything you need to know about how to begin a print project, how our production team can help, and how to make sure your project elements are ready when you are.
We recommend following these steps to help ensure the best possible output quality for your important documents.
How to request an estimate and initiate a print project
You can obtain an estimate by contacting the Document Center. Make sure you have the following information before calling:
- Is the project new, or a reprint?
- Number of original pages to be printed
- Quantity
- Finished page size
- Paper weight and color
- Ink color(s)
- How artwork will be submitted (camera-ready, disk, etc.)
- Design information (photos, bleeds, etc.)
- Finishing work (folding, stapling, etc.)
University Marketing offers typesetting/design service. Please contact Julie Roberts, 3-2524, for more information about this service.
[Back to Top]
Two ways to prepare your job for printing
Option 1: University Marketing's graphic designers can create the entire layout for you. You will need to provide text copy, photos/artwork that are not on file, and specific instructions regarding the layout and design. Mock-up of pages showing placement of text and photos is helpful in conveying your ideas.
Contact Julie Roberts, 783-2524, or Toni Hobbs, 783-2225 to schedule an appointment for the design of your project. Visit University Marketing at www.moreheadstate.edu/marketing for document planning information, style guidelines and logo.
Option 2: Many people like to create designs on their own computers. This type of "Desktop Publishing" is often fine for a few copies from a personal inkjet or color laser printer, but desktop publishing may not always be compatible with high-volume "printing" such as that done by Document Services.
Here are a few things to consider prior to creating your own design:
- If your design has photographs, artwork, or other elements that print as screens (small patterns of dots from your printer), then you will need to be able to send us your design as a Postscript or PDF file on a Zip disk or CD.
- Just because your design prints to your inkjet or laser printer, it may not be compatible with our equipment. Laser prints are fine for black & white copies. Color files should be sent as a Postscript or PDF file on a Zip disk or CD.
- Many people incorporate a lot of color in their designs, but realize after completing their layout that they cannot afford full color printing. Request an estimate prior to beginning your design, then you can design your project within your budget.
- Allow at least a 1/2" margin around the edge of your finished design. If you do not allow this margin, your design may need to be printed on larger paper, significantly increasing your cost.
- Before you start your project, it would be advisable to contact us first. Many times work comes through us that has to be either recreated or modified in some way, which costs time and money.
Document Services can accept either hardcopy originals (for single color) or digital files for printing. QuarkXpress, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Photoshop files (Mac or PC format) are supported by our office. Text files are accepted in Word Perfect or Microsoft Word. We do not support or offer assistance for Microsoft Publisher or Adobe PageMaker files. We recommend submitting both the program file and a PDF of the file.
Some items to remember when preparing your own files:
- Send both the printer and the screen font files.
- Original photos and graphics must be linked and included with the file.
- Photos must be saved at a minimum of 300 dpi resolution. While 72 dpi images may look good on your computer screen, they are not acceptable quality for printing.
- We can accept 3 1/2 inch floppy disk,100 or 250 MB ZIP disks, or CDs.
Usage of MSU's logo on printed materials
Important: Please read Guidelines for Use of University Symbols for logo specifics from the Office of University Marketing.
[Back to Top]
Submitting your job:
The IKON Document Center at MSU has a walk-up customer service window located in the basement of Allie Young Hall, Room 14.
Customer work orders will be available at this window at all times. Should you need assistance filling out this document, please contact one of our helpful staff.
Customers also are welcome to submit jobs to the IKON Document Center via inter-departmental mail, U.S. Mail, or e-mail at: ikon@moreheadstate.edu.
Should a customer need blank copies of the IKON Document Center work order, they may contact the center at 606-783-IKON.
How to design direct mail pieces to U.S. Postal Service specifications
Avoid extra postage or worse, rejection of your mailing - talk to us about your mail piece before designing it! The Postal Service requires that mail pieces meet certain specifications for size, weight, and text placement.
[Back to Top]
Graphics and photos
Creating any images included in your document at the appropriate resolution, and in the right file format for your needs, are essential for quality print output. It is also important to include all graphic files along with your final document file when sending us your project.
For most work, a rule of thumb is to save graphics in TIF or EPS format, as opposed to JPG, GIF, BMP or PNG format.
The best resolution for graphics and photos is 300 dots per inch (dpi).
How do you know the resolution of the graphics you're working with? If you have an imaging program like Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator, you should be able to open your original graphics and determine their resolution.
If any of your graphics were saved at Web resolution (typically 72 to 96 dpi), they will not output satisfactorily in print. This is because high-resolution reprographic equipment must "guess" where to add extra dots, or pixels, to increase the graphic's resolution to match the equipment's. This results in inaccurate or "pixelated" images.
Likewise, if your original graphics were created at lower resolution, you should not attempt to save them at a higher resolution, as the pixelation problem described above will occur.
University Marketing provides photography services. If you need to have photos taken for your publication, contact Tim Holbrook at 3-2750 or t.holbrook@moreheadstate.edu.
Fonts
We strive to maintain as many typefaces as possible in our prepress equipment; but occasionally we encounter an uninstalled font, and our equipment may substitute the next closest one. This can affect line breaks, pagination, and other important elements of the finished product.
We recommend saving your file as Portable Document Format (PDF) files, which gives you the opportunity to upload or "embed" all the fonts and graphics you used into your document, eliminating any substitutions that may occur. We highly recommend doing so, especially if you use unusual or handmade typefaces in your document. Please include your screen and printer fonts along with your final document file when sending your files.
[Back to Top]
Specifying Color
In four-color process work, the standard used is Cyan/Magenta/Yellow/Black (CMYK). For one- or two-color offset printing, the spot color standard typically used is the Pantone Matching System (PMS). When designing a spot color job, make sure the color is designated as a PMS and not CMKY.
When creating graphics and your final document, be sure you're using one of these color standards consistently to avoid inaccurate color separations. Keep in mind that the standard of Red/Blue/Green (RGB) is a monitor-screen matching system only; in other words, it is used for software and Web designs, and will not provide accurate color matching for printed materials. MSU Eagle blue is PMS 286; MSU yellow is PMS 116.
Original materials: Hard copy or d igital files
Camera-ready hard copies: When submitting camera-ready copy, make sure it is on white paper and that type is clean and dark. If using screens, please use 20% to 40%.
If you have photos or logos, please indicate where they are to be placed, and if they are to be reduced, enlarged, or cropped.
If your job has more than two pages, please indicate the page numbers on the back of the camera-ready copy.
Text to be typeset by University Marketing: If we are typesetting your document, prepare a text file on disk (3.5", Zip, or CD). We will format your text to fit correctly on the printed page.
Please follow these guidelines when submitting a text-only disk:
- Do not use hard returns at the end of each line of type.
- Use one tab instead of several spaces to line up copy.
- Save your document as "text-only."
- Enclose a printed hard copy of the file.
Digital files for film output: We can output your digital files directly to film. QuarkXpress is the preferred desktop publishing application for print work. Microsoft Word files can be accepted, but do not handle page layouts, colors, and graphics as well; documents may not print as you created them. If you created your file in any other application, please save your file as a PostScript or PDF file. While our production environment is primarily Mac-based, we can accept PC files as well. Please be aware, however, that PCs and Macs use different font sets. Again, PS and PDF are great formats in almost any case, as they maintain the integrity of layout, graphics, colors, and typefaces from any application or platform while translating it to our prepress equipment.
About Portable Document Format (PDF) Files
We highly recommend saving your file as a PDF prior to sending it to us - or to anyone! The advantages of a PDF file are not just limited to our printers. PDF files offer the ability to overcome platform, software, version, font, and graphic incompatibilities by embedding all data into a single compressed file, allowing virtually any other computer user to see and print your file exactly as you created it.
Storage media: How to get your digital files to us
Please follow these guidelines when sending us your digital files:
- Any document with graphics needs to have the original linked graphics file on the disk or embedded within the file.
- Include all screen fonts and printer fonts used in the document.
- The job we are outputting and the fonts and graphics pertaining to that job should be the only documents on the disk.
- Make sure your colors are correct (spot color or process separations).
[Back to Top]
