File Preparation

How to Prepare Files for Printing in Colour

How to Save CC Files for Printing at the Digital Print Centre

How to Print Word or Pages Documents to PDF in OSX

How to Save AutoCAD Files for Plotting

How to Combine your files into a single .PDF using Adobe Acrobat

How to Transport Your File to the Digital Print Centre (Storage Media)

How to Prepare Your File for Booklet Printing

How to Prepare Your File to Produce a Perfect Bound book

How to Prepare Files for Printing in Colour

1. Save your files in TIF format when using bitmap-based programs such as Photoshop.

2. Save your files as PDF when using vector-based programs such as AutoCAD and Illustrator, or when using mixed bitmap and vector-based programs such as InDesign and Quark Xpress

3. Print your files to PDF when using word processors such as Word or Pages.

For more information and application-specific instruction, see the related articles in this section.

In the interest of serving as many people as possible, we cannot accept native InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Word, Pages or Quark Xpress files

The following set of instructions is for Adobe Creative Cloud.

How to Save CCFiles for Printing at the Digital Print Centre

Saving .PDFs

MS Word

1. File > Save As

2. File Format: Adobe PDF

Illustrator/Photoshop

1. File > Save As

2. Save as type: Adobe PDF/Photoshop PDF > Save (for Photoshop: select ICC profile > save)

3. Adobe PDF preset: "High Quality Print"

4. Un-check "Enable/Preserve Editing Capabilities"

5. (Illustrator only) Marks and Bleed > Apply bleed and crop marks

AutoCad

1. Output > Plot

2. Printer/Plotter > Name > AutoCAD PDF

3. Select paper size

4. Plot Area > window

5. Plot offset > centre

6. Plot scale > deselect "fit to appear" > select scale

7. Print > ok

InDesign

1. File > Export

2. Save as type: Adobe PDF > Save

3. Adobe PDF preset: "High Quality Print"

4. Select "pages"

5. Marks and Bleeds > Select "crop marks" and "bleed marks" > export

Saving .TIFFs 

Illustrator

1. File > Export As

2. Format > TIFF

3. Select "use artboards" > Export

4. Colour Mode: CMYK

5. Resolution: "High (300ppi)

6. Select "embed ICC profile"

Photoshop

1. File > Save As

2. Ensure that ICC profile is right and selected

3. Format: .TIFF

4. Image compression: none

5. Pixel order: interleaved

6. Byte order: IBM PC

7. Layer Compression: "discard layers"

Saving .JPEGs

Illustrator

1. File > export as

2. Format: .JPEG

3. Select "use artboards" > export

4. Colour mode: CMYK

5. Image quality: 10/maximum

6. Compression: baseline (standard)

7. Resolution: high (300ppi)

8. Select "embed ICC profile" > ok

InDesign

1. File > export

2. Save as type: .JPEG

3. Export: select either "all" or the specific pages you want to print

4. Image quality: high

5. Format method: baseline

6. Resolution: 300ppi

7. Colourspace: CMYK 

Photoshop

1. File > save as

2. Ensure that ICC Profile is right and selected

3. Format: .JPEG

4. Image Compression: none

5. Pixel Order: Interleaved

6. Byte order: IBM PC

7. Layer compression: discard layers

How to Print Word or Pages Documents to PDF in OSX

1. File > Print

2. Printer > Adobe PDF

3. Preset > Standard

4. Print

5. Save As > YourFileName.pdf

6. Save

How to Save AutoCAD Files for Plotting

Plot all files to PDF from AutoCAD:

1. Output > Plot

2. Printer/Plotter > Name > Adobe PDF

3. Paper size > Select appropriate paper size

4. Plot area > Window

5. Plot scale > Deselect "Fit to paper"

6. Plot scale > Scale > Select appropriate scale

7. Plot offset > Select "Center the plot"

8. Ok