The Ten Commandments of Printing

1. Only place files for the printing project on the disk you give to your printingpress or service bureau. If not, count on paying for whatever else is output.
2. Always provide a hard copy "style sheet" which shows the total printing project on your disk, including file names, images, font usage, operating system and any other info that will help direct your offset printing company or service bureau with your output for the best digital color printing services.
3. Along with your disk always provide a hard copy of your artwork that is to be printed. "A picture is worth a thousand words" when your printingpress or service bureau can see what you are attempting to output.
4. Always provide a folded dummy of your printing project. There is no reason for your bindery to guess at your printing and folding requirements, because many variations are possible but only one is correct.
   
5. On your disk along with your document file, always provide an image directory/folder with all the images you will be printing and a font directory/folder with all the fonts to be used when printing your piece. Do so even with programs that embed them. If a fix is required of your printing company or service bureau it is more difficult and costly to you to work with embedded files and not all programs embed fonts and images properly.
6. Never use JPG, GIF or other internet type file formats; they are usually low resolution and JPG files have a built in compression that can be visible on larger printed projects such as posters. These formats will print poorly because they generally have about 5% of the information required to print high resolution images. Generally stick with TIFF or EPS files for your images. The average printed piece on a small press is 266 dpi and on a large press 300 dpi (dpi is approximately 2X the line screen). If printing process color, be sure to convert your RGB images to CMYK or you will have shifts in color you might not like.
7. Work backwards from the last step of your printing job and you will avoid making mistakes that, as they say in the music business, "can be fixed in the mix". They usually cannot and might require you to reprint. Plan your printing job from the bindery portion of the printing process (if that is your last step) and make sure that all requirements necessary in bindery, such as folding, die scoring/cutting, etc can be met in the prior process of printing and film output. (An example is "creep" which is preparing your page sizing to fold accurately).
8. Understand how pages print and what a "press efficient form" is: 4 for small press, 8-12 for a 28" press and 16 for 40" large press. This will allow you to keep your project within budget. (If you have 5 pages of information and can reduce or compact your information to 4 pages you are being press efficient).
9. Do not try to reinvent the wheel. Work with the most efficient printing press and bindery layout for your project. If you don't use the best printingpress for your requirements you will suffer in quality or costs.
10. The most important of the commandments: REDUNDANCY IS YOUR FRIEND! Cover your bases and watch the details in every area.