Preface

True confession: I'm not a designer.

Oh, I can place type and graphics in a respectable arrangement on a page, but that's about it. I can't conjure up compelling concepts and award-winning designs. But that's OK. I'm not supposed to be a designer.

I'm a printing person. I spent the first twenty years of my working life in prepress. (Oops, there seems to be a little printing problem there. But, heyare numbers really that important?) I'm at an awkward stage in my career. I'd like to lie about my age, but I'm reluctant to abbreviate my résumé. Instead, I'll attempt to convince you that I started in printing at a very young age ("Is that a baby with an X-Acto™ knife?"). You know you've been in printing a long time if:

• Your grocery list has hanging indents.

• Your driver's license lists your eye color as PMS 5757.

• Your shoe size is 6½ plus ¹/₈-inch bleed.

• You refer to painting your house as a two-color job.

• You decide to write a book called Real World Print Production.

Who Should Read This Book

If you are a designer or a production artist who would like a better understanding of the pitfalls you encounter in using popular software, you'll find lots of pointers in this book to help you avoid problems. Almost all software provides options that are tempting to choose, but are dangerous under some circumstances. It's good to know which buttons not to push. And it's valuable to know why those buttons shouldn't be pushed.

In addition, the more designers know about the physical requirements of the printing process, the more easily they can avoid problems and missed deadlines. This book can explain why your printer sometimes asks you to modify your designs for print. Better yet, you can beat them to it, and they will compliment you on how well-prepared your jobs always are. Besides, working within limitations can sometimes lead to imaginative solutions and more interesting designs.

If you are a prepress production operator, you'll find many reminders of subtle problems that can lurk in images, page layouts, and illustration files. If you're new to printing, you'll find beneficial insights into what's happening on the other side of the pressroom door. And if you're looking for a gentle way to educate clients, well, a book always makes a nice gift, doesn't it?

As the lines between designer and printer become more blurred, some professionals don't fall clearly into a single category. Many organizations are responsible for both design and output, and it's especially important to know the whole story if you're going to shoulder such a wide responsibility.

What This Book is Not

If you're in the market for a hot tips-and-tricks book, this isn't it. It's not a guide for wow-your-friends special effects, unless you consider it a special effect to get your job to print as expected. And, although this book demonstrates how to do some useful things in the most popular desktop publishing programs, it isn't strictly a how-to book either. In fact, there's so much "how not to" information in this book that I considered calling it You Must Always Never Do This.

Are there any prerequisites for using this book? Only two, really. First, you should have basic proficiency in the software you use on a regular basis. The other requirement is arguably more important: You should have a healthy curiosity about the printing process and a desire to build problem-free files.

About the Author

You never know where you'll end up. I was a chemistry major. Really. But I had a knack for illustration, and I took some college art classes for extra credit. One of my instructors (Michael Parkes, who has since become a well-known fine artist in Europe), suggested that I change my career path from chemistry to commercial art. I thought, "Well, I'll try it for a while," and took a job at a printing plant that summer. I fell in love with printing, and never went back to the lab. Thanks, Michael.

As a prepress production person, I always enjoyed discovering new techniques and sharing those discoveries with coworkers and customers. I started in conventional paste-up, and then moved into film stripping. (It's not what you think. See the glossary in Chapter One, "Lifecycle of a Print Job.") And I was extremely fortunate to be one of the first operators of color electronic prepress systems in the U.S., so I've been pushing pixels around for a long time. Then, because it could do the same magic as a Scitex or Crosfield system (minus the million-dollar price tag), Adobe^® Photoshop^® lured me to desktop computers.

I always believed in educating customers so they wouldn't be intimidated by the mysteries of printing. Not surprisingly, that led to my second career as a trainer, consultant, and presenter at industry conferences. It's truly invigorating to answer questions, illuminate software mysteries, and solve problems for my clients and conference attendees.

Acknowledgements

I'm passing on to you some of the Basic Printing Truths imparted to me by a number of fine old printing curmudgeons. Count yourself truly lucky if you're befriended by a craftsman like Rick Duncan, who came up through the ranks, learned how to do everything the old-fashioned way, and who was always patient with a kid asking too many questions.

I'm quite fortunate to be part of an informal fraternity of graphic arts geeks aficionados. While we each have our specialties, our common bond is the love of learning and sharing new tricks. David Blatner, Scott Citron, Sandee "Vector Babe" Cohen, and Anne-Marie Concepción are my InDesign brethren (and sistren), going back to the days when we were considered page-layout rebels. Mordy Golding's passion for Illustrator is contagious, and he shares my devotion to enlightening designers in the mysteries of print. His URL says it all: www.designresponsibly.com. Dan Margulis is my long-time Photoshop color-correction hero (and a fine cook to boot), and I'm grateful to Chris Murphy for putting color management into mere-mortal language. Mark Atchley has been a wonderful cheerleader when I'm exhausted, and Steve Werner's insights into prepress and software arcana have given me many "Aha!" moments. Chuck Weger is in a class by himself, providing all of us the opportunity to publicly humiliate ourselves in his delightful printing-trivia game shows. (Even Chuck's jacket is in a class by itself. Well, actually it's in quarantine.) And I owe special thanks to Olav Martin Kvern for lending me a cup of PostScript code for the FreeHand chapter. These are some of the brightest and funniest people I know.

My appreciation to Carrie Cooper, Colin Fleming, and Maria Yap of Adobe Systems, Inc., for kind encouragement when I struck out as a freelance consultant and trainer. Adobe is also home to a number of other exceptional colleagues, including Will Eisley, Dov Isaacs, Lonn Lorenz, and Whitney McCleary. They all show a true passion for Adobe products, a realistic view of how things actually work out here in the wild, and, most importantly, an affection for users and a strong dedication to creating better software. I must also single out two of Adobe's most energetic women: My heartfelt thanks to Noha Edell for her continuing, inspirational support and encouragement, and my gratitude to Ashwini Jambotkar for her unique insights into the challenges faced by designers.

Many thanks to Cyndie Shafstall and Shellie Hall at Quark for illuminating the new features of QuarkXPress^® 7.0. It's probably the best-ever version of the program.

I must express appreciation to my fellow PDF devotees Carl Young, whose conferences prove that Acrobat geeks are great rollicking fun; interactive Acrobat magician Bob Connolly for bringing PDFs to life; and to PDF Sage Leonard Rosenthol, who always knows where the best restaurant is (as well as the longest, most interesting route to get there). And Ted Padova doubles the value of his prodigious knowledge of all things PDF by always being so generous in sharing it.

You sometimes hear scare stories about the process of writing books, but you won't hear them from me. I am fortunate to be under the wing of Peachpit Press. I'm especially grateful to the incomparable Pam Pfiffner for making authorship sound like such a good idea. Thanks to Lisa Brazieal for guiding me through the foreign territory of the book-writing process, and very special thanks to Nancy Raiken for her delicate editorial touch. This is a better book for all their gentle nudges.

And for applying the last coat of varnish and polishing this book to a sheen, I must thank Owen Wolfson for his design and composition work, and Carol DeMatteis of Colleen Dunham Indexing for crafting the index so you can actually find information.

When I was asked to suggest technical editors, I went for the gold. Jim Birkenseer and Peter Truskier of Premedia Systems, Inc., in addition to knowing the most arcane inner workings of publishing technology, are responsible for the automation that made the stellar series of America 24/7 books possible. I can't thank Jim and Peter enough for taking time from their brutal schedules to poke through my words and ensure that I wasn't spreading any myths. They refined, corrected, and taught me a few things in the process. They're also accomplished masters of the nose flute.