It's finally done. You have been laboring over it for days, weeks, even months, poring over every word, picking just the right pictures, finding typestyles—not too flowery, not too blocky—that just stand up and shout YOU. You've gathered informal focus groups around your desk at work, or the kitchen table at home, and everyone finally agrees that this is it. It is your brochure, and it is ready to go to print.

But wait! Before you head off to Camden Printing, Let's take one more look at those files, giving special attention to the following areas of potential concern.

Are your files being provided on disk? Via email? At Camden Printing, we accept files on CD, 100MB Zip disk or floppy disk. If you are emailing us, your attachments should not exceed 2MB in size.

Have you provided all necessary fonts (both printer & screen), scanned photos, and other art images on the disk?

Have you used a software program that is compatible with ours? We work on Macs, using Quark Xpress 6.1 for page layout, Photoshop 8 and Illustrator 11 for creating/managing art images. If you are using a word processing program such as Microsoft Word or Publisher, we cannot print directly from that file. We will have to reformat your layout in Quark. In the case of Pagemaker, InDesign or other page layout program, we will either reformat ourselves or send it out to a third party to provide film for us from the documents you have provided.

Have you supplied laser proofs? Strange things can and do happen to files, and it is always best to provide a proof of what you are expecting your finished piece to look like. This is especially important if your file is one that needs reformatting (see Getting Along). It is also helpful to provide separated proofs (a printed page for each color) for multiple-colored jobs.

Now let's dig a little deeper and see what's in that layout.

• Bleeds – Do all colors and/or images that print to the edge of the document extend beyond the edge by an eighth of an inch?
• Style palette – Have you avoided the use of style palettes in Quark to bold, italicize or shadow type, using only actual fonts?
• Image resolution – Are all photos/illustrations provided at a high enough resolution? We prefer 1200 dpi for line art, 300 dpi for grayscale images and 360 dpi for full color images.
• Colors – Have all colors been correctly assigned? CMYK separated colors for full color, PMS or solid spot colors for 1-3 color documents.

Have you scheduled a reasonable amount of time for the project to be completed? You should plan on about 10 business days from the time we get your file until your printing is finished. It may take less time, depending on the complexity of the job. The files that you provide can be very helpful in streamlining the pre-press process and assuring that the vision you have for your printed material remains intact—if you follow some basic guidelines in the creation of your layout and the delivery of your files. Each item on this checklist represents a possible added expense, either of time or cost to print. By making sure that these are in order, your project will print on budget and without unnecessary delay.