This page offers some sound advice on colour printing, the process and some helpful things to remember before you go to print.

Correct Fonts Included
Make sure all the fonts you have used are included with the job. This includes all fonts used within illustration files. For postscript fonts the screen and printer files should be included. For TrueType fonts only one item is needed as this serves as both screen and printer font. Do not include any fonts which have not been used.

Correct Resolution
The resolution of a file as the number of dots per inch (dpi) it contains. As a general rule between 350 and 450 is best for a high quality output, but 250 should be an absolute minimum. The effective resolution is not necessarily the same as the file’s native resolution. It is the resolution at which the file is rasterised on output. For example a 400dpi file reduced to 50% dimension in a page layout package will have an effective resolution of 800dpi, but the same file expanded to 200% would only have an effective resolution of 200dpi.

Correct File Types
Pictures should be saved as EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) or TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) files wherever possible. When saving as EPS do not use JPEG compression, use Binary. When saving as a TIFF file it is acceptable to save as Mac or IBM PC encoding and to use LZW compression. LZW is a lossless form of compression, which can reduce file sizes considerably.

• TIFF
• EPS (Bitmap or vector)
• JPEG
• GIF

The list below defines a list of acceptable file formats.