InDesign Assistance

Click here to go back to Support & Downloads page

We are here to help. The following are some common areas that our clients need help with.

If at any time you need further assistance, please feel free to contact us at (502) 585-2197 and ask for our pre-press department and one of our specialist will be glad to walk you through your project.

Before you start work on any design and layout, make certain that your InDesign document is set at the appropriate trim dimension for your project. The “trim size” (or finished size) is the final dimension that your printing job will be cut to (before any folding, if needed). An additional 1/8” bleed is required wherever design elements touch the edge of your trim dimension. This means that any element that touches the trim edge must be allowed to extend past the trim edge by at least 1/8”. This assures a safety margin during the post production trimming of your project to assure that your bleed elements remain touching the trim edge without any white, unprinted gaps between the bleed element and the trim edge. If you have any elements (including borders) that you do not want on the edge of the finished piece, then you must have a margin of 1/4" on all sides to ensure that those element aren't cut off.

• Resolution: Be certain to use image resolutions 300 dpi (or ppi) or better for color and grayscale images (otherwise known as “halftone” images), and 1,200 dpi (or ppi) for bitmap images (otherwise known as “line art”).

• Image quality: Use non-compressed file formats such as TIFF, EPS or native Photoshop files when possible (without compression settings). If you need to use a compressed file format like JPEG in your design, make sure the image is saved with “Maximum Quality” settings. This will prevent loss of image quality during the compression process.

• 4-color Process (CMYK): When using color or color images in your design and layout, be certain to use CMYK values instead of RGB. CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black “K”) is the color space that printers use to run your job. If you have an image that is RGB, like images that come from your digital camera or scanner, you must convert them to CMYK first before placing into your design.

 

When using black elements, especially large coverage areas, in your 4-color design, it is best to you use a “rich black,” which is a black composed of all four process colors. This gives your black a deeper, darker shade of black on press.

For solids, create a swatch in InDesign that is 20% cyan, 20% magenta, 20% yellow, and 100% black.

It is necessary to use 100% black for body copy (text).

Go to File > Export. Choose “Adobe PDF” as the format, select where and what you wish to save the file, and click “Save.” The following dialog box will appear.

Under General, make sure all of your pages are selected.

Under Compression, make sure it is Do No Downsample.

Under Marks and Bleeds - Only if your document bleeds, selected .125 as the bleed setting for all sides. Do NOT use bleed marks. You can select crop marks, but it is not necessary.

You can now hit Export to save your PDF.