General Information:
Here are some general guidelines to help you prepare your documents for press printing. If you have any questions about these guidelines, do not hesitate to call us before creating your document. Following these guidelines will greatly reduce the chance of problems arising during the pre-press stages of production.
Please provide us with complete information when submitting jobs for electronic imaging, including:
Contact Person's Name & Phone Number
Designer's Name & Phone Number
Outside Suppliers' Names & Numbers
Complete, CURRENT laser prints of the document(s)
Jobs can be submitted it two platforms: IBM/PC or Macintosh.
3.5" Floppy
3.5" Super Floppy 120 Mb
100 Mb Zip
CD (or CDR)
DVD
Electronically Transferred via our FTP Site.
A document may be created in either PageMaker v6.5 or later or in QuarkXpress v3.3 or later.
DO NOT CREATE YOUR DOCUMENTS IN Photoshop, Illustrator or Freehand (these applications are used to create graphic files, not documents).
Page size must be NO LARGER THAN 17.5" x 25".
Keep your file titles SHORT and DESCRIPTIVE and use proper extension on IBM/PC documents.
If your titles are too long, truncation will occur when transferring from some medias or from our FTP site. This causes documents to lose the link to supporting graphics and files. For further information about file naming conventions, please call Valley Offset Printing and ask for the Imaging Department.
ALL graphics used within your documents should be LINKED (not embedded) and ALL linked graphics must be included with your document when you submit it to us for printing; however, DO NOT send graphics which are NOT used within your document. Graphic files must be save in one of the following formats:
Encapsulated Post Script Format (eps)
Tagged Information Format (tif)Graphics should be created in one of these applications (DO NOT USE FILE COMPRESSION SUCH AS LZW COMPRESSION):
Photoshop
Illustrator
FreehandIf your graphics are all one color (black or spot) save the graphics as grayscale. After creating your graphics, check highlights and shadows. The Highlight should be no less than 5% black, and the Shadow should be no more than 85% black.
If your graphics contain more than one spot color, they must be saved as EPS files with the specific spot color channels embedded and properly named within the graphic. (If you name a color, for example, PANTONE 186, this color name must be used exactly that way within your document, and the name is case sensitive. These are not the same: Pantone 186, PANTONE 186 CV, Pantone 186 CVU, etc.)
If you are printing in process color, your graphics should be saved as CMYK graphics.
DO NOT SEND PICT, PIC, GIF, PCX, AUTO CAD or Windows META FILES! (We cannot print these files to high resolution press plates).
If you need assistance in saving your graphics properly, please call us prior to submitting the job to us.
All fonts used within your document MUST be included on with your document when you submit it to us for printing. Include all varieties of the font family (italic, bold, heavy, extrabold, oblique, etc.)
MACINTOSH:
When creating your document, be sure to use the proper font variation (NOT THE FONT STYLE BUTTON). For Example, use the font "TimesItalic" to italicize "Times", not the "i" button on the "Times Regular" font.
Be sure to include both screen fonts and printer fonts.
Adobe Type 1 and True Type are both acceptableIBM/PC
Adobe Type 1 and True Type are both acceptable
A SPOT COLOR print job usually consists of one, two or three specifically mixed ink colors. If more than three colors are used in the job, it usually is best to print the job in PROCESS color rather than spot color. Some examples of spot color jobs may be:
Print job consisting of only black ink
Print job consisting of black and one or two spot colors (like red and blue) for emphasis on certain section of the document
Print jobs consisting of one, two or three colors other than black
A PROCESS COLOR print job usually consists of several colors (more than three) containing items such as photos, full color graphics or artwork. These types of job require a mixing of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK) to create virtually any color within your document.
You may upload your files to our web site after doing the following:
1. Save your current document into a new folder using the "Collect for Output" (in Quark) or the "Save for Service Provider" Utility Plug-In (in PageMaker). Name the folder something that we will recognize as being yours.
2. Copy ALL fonts used in you document into a Font Folder within your new document folder. Double check the "collection report" to make sure that all fonts used within your document are in this folder.
3. Use either Stuff-It, Compact Pro, or WinZip to compress your new folder.
4. Use a File Transfer Protocol client application (FTP) such as WSFTP or FTP Explorer for IBM/PC or Fetch or Interarchy for Macintosh to upload your compressed folder to our website. When you are ready to upload your files to Valley Offset Printing, please call our Imaging Department for any problems at (316) 755-0061 or Toll Free at 1-888-895-7913. It is also a good idea to send an email to imaging@valleyoffset.com to let us know that you have uploaded a job with a brief description of what it is.
Host Address: ftp1.valleyoffset.com Port: 21 Log In: Anonymous Password: Your Email Address 5. Click here for additional FTP Explorer instructions.
6. After your file transfer is complete, please call your Valley Offset Customer Service Representative and let them know that you uploaded files to our FTP server.