Helpful hint: To get your product ready to print, you should have a working knowledge of how to lay out a book and how to work with Adobe Photoshop (or an equivalent program). If you don't have these skills you need to find and hire someone who can get your product print ready.
We prefer PDF or TIFF files, but can accept most file types.You may wish to get a proof copy made before making your final print run.
The best program to prepare print ready PDF files is Acrobat Distiller. The reason for this is that you need a much higher resolution for print than for internet viewing. Once you are in Acrobat Distiller, you will be offered several panels of options with these being the important ones:
The job setting is set to press optimized.
General tab resolution is set to 2400 dpi.
Compression for color & grayscale images is set at 300 dpi, no compression.
Compression for Monochrome Images set at 2400 dpi, compression CCITT Group 4, Compression Text and Line Art: selected.
All fonts Embed
Keep all other panel options the same.
This should create a large file. If it doesn't seem large to you, something was probably done incorrectly.
Be sure that you make all embedded color images CMYK and not RGB in the PDF file. RGB files may not produce true color and the only way to change it is to have you distill the whole project over again and resubmit it.
TIFF files: This is the best format for covers because there is less chance for error in printing from TIFF files. Save your TIFF files as CMYK and use LZW compression.
Cover Preparation: All covers require a ¼" bleed. Using the figures below, calculate the spine width and add it to the front and back cover size.
Perfect bound books: Add total number of pages x .0021116.
Hardback books: Add total number of pages x .0027901.
Book Weight: To help budget shipping costs, calculate the book weight by adding all the interior pages (including blank sheets, etc). Do not include the covers and use the following chart.
8.5"x11" perfect bound is page count x .004
6"x9" perfect bound is page count x .0035
5.5"x8.5" perfect bound is page count x .003
8.5"x11" hardbound is page count x .006
6"x9" hardbound is page count x .005
5.5"x8.5" hardbound bound is page count x .0045
