The Prepress and Graphics Department at Adams Addressing has created this site to help you, our clients, when sending files for print. Our prepress is the first step in a job that runs through Adams Addressing, and our highly skilled prepress department is responsible for the foundation of these jobs.
We are also here for any
graphic design needs as well. Inquire within.
FILE FORMATS • DOCUMENT SIZES • FONTS/TEXT • IMAGES/COLOR/RESOLUTION
This area gives you the information on the supported file versions for files that we accept and much more. If you still have any questions at all, feel free to contact our Prepress Department for more information and help: prepress411@adamsaddressing.com
FILE FORMATS We prefer a PDF file; however, we accept industry standard cross platform file types such as: EPS, PDF, PS, PSD, TIF, AI Quark & Indesign: We can accept In-Design or Quark natively. If you do send us the native file, use the “Collect For Output” step. This will give us all the necessary parts to print out your work as it should look. Please review all of your images/fonts on your document BEFORE sending to us for print.
DOCUMENT SIZE Check Your Bleeds and Safety Area. A bleed is the extra area that extends past the edges of your document. For example, if you have a 5.5 x 8.5 print document, you should design your image as 5.75 x 8.75 leaving the extra 1/8th on all sides for bleed. Your background should run off the edge and into your bleed. The bleed will be cut off. It is important that you do not keep any active content, such as images or text, that is important to the document in the bleed or safety areas. Active content in this area risks being cut off. Safety area is an 1/8th of an inch inwards from the document edge. Please keep all words and images away from the edge to ensure proper cutting. Our maximum printable area on the HP INDIGO 5500 is 12.48" x 17.7", which gives nice amount of room for your printing needs.
FONTS/TEXT If you are using a program that uses live fonts such as Illustrator or Indesign, please convert your fonts to objects/outlines/curves so we do not require you to submit your fonts with your files. Please make sure your fonts are not live. Rasterized images such as flattened TIFs, or FLATTENED PDFs do not have this issue. HELPFUL HINT: Delete unused style sheets; use at least 10 point type for reverses; align type using tabs, not the space bar; (Mac) use the proper font rather than applying a font style (use “Garamond Bold” rather than applying “bold” to Garamond from the style menu).
IMAGES/COLOR/RESOLUTION Images should be setup as CMYK (Cyan,Yellow, Magenta, Black) and not RGB (Red, Green, Blue). 4Color process (CMYK) is standard in the printing industry. Having the images as RGB will require us to force to CMYK and color will vary from what you would like. Large, solid black areas and text over 36 points should use Rich Black to prevent the color looking gray. Rich Black consists of 30% Cyan, 30% Magenta, 30% Yellow, 100% Black. For regular body text, do not use Rich Black. It will be harder to read. * Our press can handle up to 7 colors. (CMYK + 3 spot). Be sure when using the spot colors, that your colors are correctly named/used. A PMS 300C will produce differently that that of PMS 300U. HELPFUL HINTS: Delete unused colors. Define colors properly and consistently. Use uncompressed graphics. (don’t use LZW or JPEG for final output). –––––– IMAGES should be 300dpi or at least 1.5 to 2X the linescreen –––––– You can always “reduce” your resolution but never “increase” your resolution. Using files that are 72dpi from the internet and placing them in a 300dpi document does NOT make them 300dpi. –––––– * We have access to a large resource of royalty free images for use by our customers and can offer design services if needed.