Commerical printing with Publisher 2003

[Bill]

I am doing the layout for an instructional manual that will (we estimate)
have 130 pages. This manual will be going for printing and binding to a
commercial print house. I recently spoke to a professional design and layout
artist, who expressed a concern that Publisher 2003 may not be suitable for
this task. They recommended InDesign, as to send my document to the
commercial printer I must also do a printer spread (or imposition file) in
order for the printer to be able to print, crop, fold and bind the document.
I was also told that graphics must be CYMK in opposed to RGB (I do see that I
can set this option in Publisher), and that fonts converted to “outlines†or
“curvesâ€. As I am new to all this, I am now concerned that the final document
although looking fine on screen will not be of use to the commercial print
house. I was also asked to provide the file in pdf format. I tried using
cutepdf to output my current work as a pdf file, but was dismayed to see that
the quality of graphics was greatly reduced, and parts of the document were
missing or moved onto additional pages. Could someone please advise if there
is anyway around these issues using 2003.

 

[Mary Sauer]

All you ever wanted to know about commercial printing.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/CH062524641033.aspx

I think if you use the real McCoy, i.e., Adobe Acrobat, you will not have the
degradation of your images. Adobe offers five free conversions on their web site.
http://createpdf.adobe.com/?v=AHP

 

[Ed Bennett]

I recently spoke to a
professional design and layout artist, who expressed a concern that
Publisher 2003 may not be suitable for this task. They recommended
InDesign

Yeah, they do that. Many or most printers and professional designers are
notoriously Publisher-phobic. This was well-founded with earlier versions
of Publisher, which were not terribly suitable for commercial print usage.
The later versions of Publisher have made learps and bounds in this area.

InDesign is expensive and has a steep learning curve. You would have
difficulty learning it, and would likely have to outsource to the pro
designer.

Pro designers are also incensed by "mom and pop" designers who use Publisher
templates to knock together a design that doesn't meet their exacting
criteria (in fairness, some things people do in Publisher can look
apalling), and printers often have trouble printing them. If they had their
way, all people making posters using computer would have to take a 6-month
intensive training course on Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress (or at lease
Adobe PageMaker), and learn all aspects of picture-perfect design, before
they were allowed to do so.

as to send my document to the commercial printer I must
also do a printer spread (or imposition file) in order for the
printer to be able to print, crop, fold and bind the document.

This depends ENTIRELY on your printer. Some printers will want to do the
imposition themselves, others will take almost any layout of output. Find
which printer you will use, and work with them to find out what they want.
Work to those specifications, not what some Publisher-phobic designer said
you should do.

I was
also told that graphics must be CYMK in opposed to RGB (I do see that
I can set this option in Publisher),

Yes, Publisher 2003 allows CMYK Composite output.

and that fonts converted to
“outlines” or “curves”.

I have not seen or done this: embedding fonts in the PDF has always been
enough for me. You will again want to check with your printer on this

As I am new to all this, I am now concerned
that the final document although looking fine on screen will not be
of use to the commercial print house.

This is unlikely.

I was also asked to provide the
file in pdf format.

This is pretty much standard.

I tried using cutepdf

I go with Mary's advice here.

to output my current work
as a pdf file, but was dismayed to see that the quality of graphics
was greatly reduced,

Changing the compression settings normally fixes this - CutePDF I believe
defaults to a high compression setting, which uses lossy JPEG compression to
bring the filesize down.

and parts of the document were missing or moved
onto additional pages.

That is very odd - I have no idea why that could have happened, and have
certainly never seen it.