300 DPI required for commercial printing.

[Paul]

I have MS Publisher 2003 running on Windows XP.

I have had this program a few years and until now it has been
sufficient because I have only ever used it for screen or to print off
a few things indoors.
However, I now need to prepare some A5 postcards for commercial
printing to promote my business. The problem seems to be that
commercial printers require the files to be 300 DPI whereas Publisher
will only give 150 DPI. There is a workaround but apparently it
would affect quality.
The formats for commercial printer are pdf, tif, or jpg.
I tried saving as pdf (i.e. printing to pdf) but this seems to remove
the background colour.
Saving as jpg will only allow a maximum resolution of 150 DPI (as will
tif).
My peference is to save as jpg at 300 DPI without quality degradation.
I realise that any photos in there will need to be 300 DPI too.
Although a novice, I understand that resolution can only be reduced
rather than enhanced (degradation excepted).

I am prepared to spend something on a bit of software but need to keep
my costs as low as possible. Has anyone any recommendations for any
cheap or free software that can do pretty much what Publisher 2003
does but can save its jpgs at 300 dpi?

I have looked around the web but many of the sites I have encountered
appear to have an agenda of selling stuff. I would prefer an unbiased
opinion from here before choosing.
I already have the document partially done in Publisher 2003. There
would be no problem in me re-doing it from scratch in another program.
I don't need loads of super dooper features really. Indeed, I like
simplicity. I just want to be able to save as a jpg at 300 dpi, full
bleed (to ensure no white edges when commercially printed) and if
possible, some type of Wordart type facility.
I would greatly appreciate any comments and recommendations (and
reason(s) for those recommendations. I really do need some simplicity
too. Although not a computer novice, dtp is not my forté.

 

[Paul]

On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:41:25 +0000, Paul
<[email protected]>, in message ID

I have MS Publisher 2003 running on Windows XP.

I have had this program a few years and until now it has been
sufficient because I have only ever used it for screen or to print off
a few things indoors.
However, I now need to prepare some A5 postcards for commercial
printing to promote my business. The problem seems to be that
commercial printers require the files to be 300 DPI whereas Publisher
will only give 150 DPI. There is a workaround but apparently it
would affect quality.
The formats for commercial printer are pdf, tif, or jpg.
I tried saving as pdf (i.e. printing to pdf) but this seems to remove
the background colour.
Saving as jpg will only allow a maximum resolution of 150 DPI (as will
tif).
My peference is to save as jpg at 300 DPI without quality degradation.
I realise that any photos in there will need to be 300 DPI too.
Although a novice, I understand that resolution can only be reduced
rather than enhanced (degradation excepted).

I am prepared to spend something on a bit of software but need to keep
my costs as low as possible. Has anyone any recommendations for any
cheap or free software that can do pretty much what Publisher 2003
does but can save its jpgs at 300 dpi?

I have looked around the web but many of the sites I have encountered
appear to have an agenda of selling stuff. I would prefer an unbiased
opinion from here before choosing.
I already have the document partially done in Publisher 2003. There
would be no problem in me re-doing it from scratch in another program.
I don't need loads of super dooper features really. Indeed, I like
simplicity. I just want to be able to save as a jpg at 300 dpi, full
bleed (to ensure no white edges when commercially printed) and if
possible, some type of Wordart type facility.
I would greatly appreciate any comments and recommendations (and
reason(s) for those recommendations. I really do need some simplicity
too. Although not a computer novice, dtp is not my forté.

Bad form replying to my own post but I would need CMYK facility too of
course.

 

[Mary Sauer]

Have you looked at the Commercial Printing articles in the help files?
There is a training document here
http://office.microsoft.com/training/training.aspx?AssetID=RC010877701033&pid=CR061832741033

Tips for optimizing your publications for commercial printing
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA010944201033.aspx?pid=CH063586601033

If you save your publication as a picture format, you are given the option
of 300 dpi. The cmyx option is found in Tools, Commercial printing tools.

 

[Paul]

On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:22:15 -0500, "Mary Sauer"
<[email protected]>, in message ID

Have you looked at the Commercial Printing articles in the help files?
There is a training document here
http://office.microsoft.com/training/training.aspx?AssetID=RC010877701033&pid=CR061832741033

Tips for optimizing your publications for commercial printing
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA010944201033.aspx?pid=CH063586601033

If you save your publication as a picture format, you are given the option
of 300 dpi. The cmyx option is found in Tools, Commercial printing tools.

Thank you for your input Mary. Those links were an interesting read.
I had read one of them previously. I had always found the CMYK option
greyed out in the Commercial Printing Tools section. The bit I hadn't
noticed was the "change" button on the save dialogue box (oops!!).

Also, once I took the time to look around Primopdf some more and
tinker around with it, I found that I was able to do other things that
I needed with that too (pdf or jpg are acceptable for the commercial
printer).

I feel a bit of a twit really. I normally look around software in a
lot more detail before resorting to newsgroups.
Thank you for your help.

 

[Mary Sauer]

Not sure I helped, I do appreciate your update.

 

[Paul]

On Wed, 3 Mar 2010 06:29:18 -0500, "Mary Sauer"
<[email protected]>, in message ID

Not sure I helped, I do appreciate your update.

Your post actually helped me a lot Mary as it caused me to think a bit
more about what I was doing .

 

[Paul]

On Wed, 3 Mar 2010 11:43:52 -0000, "GbH"
<[email protected]>, in message ID

Don't!
There are large teams of people employed it would seem to deliberately
obfuscate the user interface on these programs, when one is found that
works and is acceptable to the userbase, that is taken as a signal to
change, so as to obsolete it and make its replacement 'upgrade'
attractive.

I do take your point Geoff (especially after I looked up
obfuscate) .
Not wanting to go too far off topic, but I find MSWorks is such a case
with its periodic downgrades since version 4. I have stuck with
version 6. Unfortunately my version 4 could not be kept as it was an
OEM version. I would have bought a version 4 but by the time I
realised, I had kind of got used to v.6.
Microsoft are far from being the *only* offender regarding this issue.

 

[bj]

On Wed, 3 Mar 2010 11:43:52 -0000, "GbH"
<[email protected]>, in message ID


I do take your point Geoff (especially after I looked up
obfuscate) .
Not wanting to go too far off topic, but I find MSWorks is such a case
with its periodic downgrades since version 4. I have stuck with
version 6. Unfortunately my version 4 could not be kept as it was an
OEM version. I would have bought a version 4 but by the time I
realised, I had kind of got used to v.6.
Microsoft are far from being the *only* offender regarding this issue.

It's not just software, either, let alone any particular s/w company.

I've gotten skittish about letting *any* company know I like a product lest
they use that as a signal to change it -- and eliminate the very feature
that makes me buy the thing in the first place!

To add to my ?bad luck? in this, I'm not in a demographic any of them find
desirable, unless they make Depends or denture products or sell medical
supplies to Medicare patients.
bj

 

[Mary Sauer]

I have a poster on my wall that reads "Any Program That Runs Right is Obsolete."

 

[bj]

Or if it ain't broke, fix it some more!

If the users like it, you've done something wrong,
you haven't earned your bonus!
bj