Features

Collecting for output

If you choose not to go the PDF route, you'll need to collect your job for output. In QuarkXPress 6.5, go to File, Collect for Output. Your document is saved and the Collect for Output dialog appears. Under Collect for Output, untick Report Only, tick everything else, then click New Folder and make a folder for your collected files. Click Save. All the required files are saved into this folder, which you can then email or upload to your printer, burn onto a CD or whatever. You're not warned of any cock-ups such as images in RGB format or at low resolution, but you can check details of images, fonts and so on in the Report file that's generated (double-click it to view in TextEdit.)

In InDesign CS2, go to File, Package. A preflight check is performed and you're warned of any problems. Note that any RGB images are flagged as a problem, but should be converted successfully to CMYK when your printer creates the final output; you might want to discuss this.

Both applications will warn you that you may not be legally entitled to send your font files to a service bureau or printer. This is an old chestnut in software licensing: whoever outputs your job is theoretically expected to go and buy their own copies of any fonts it contains. In practice, if you don't give the printer the fonts your job isn't going to get printed correctly. Embedding fonts in a PDF avoids this issue.

Another recommendation you'll hear

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is to avoid using TrueType fonts and stick to PostScript Type 1. You can check the format of a font by selecting it in Font Book and pressing command-I. The jury's still out on OpenType fonts; the prevailing attitude seems to be that they're mostly harmless.

Don't ignore the more basic specs provided by your printer. Have you laid out your document on the correct page size? In QuarkXPress, this is set in Layout, Layout Properties; in InDesign, it's File, Document Setup. If you're designing a multi-page magazine or booklet, you'll use Facing Pages to lay out double-page spreads, starting on a right-hand page (the front cover) and finishing on a left (the back); but don't choose Spreads when exporting to PDF, because the printer will need individual pages to 'impose' in the correct arrangement onto larger sheets for cutting and folding.

Take note of the required bleed: any artwork that's supposed to go to the edge of the paper will need to overlap it by this amount, usually 3mm, to allow a margin of error. InDesign has this setting in Document Setup on the File menu. 'Slug' refers to the total amount of extra space added around the trimmed page size, such as A4, when the job is printed, always on larger sheets; the default 10mm should be fine. In the Marks and Bleeds pane of the Export Adobe PDF dialog, tick Use Document Bleed Settings and untick Include Slug Area. If your printer asks for crop and registration marks, tick them here too. In QuarkXPress 6.5, to set these features for an exported PDF, choose the Output tab in PDF Export Options. Set Registration to Centred, if you need crop marks, and Bleed to Symmetric, then enter the amount.

Checking all is well

Whatever success you have in thrashing out job specs with the printer, the only way to be sure of what you're going to get is to ask for a proof copy. A PDF proof emailed back to you provides some reassurance that everything's in the right place, but there's still scope for glitches that only occur, or are only visible, on press, especially with litho.