michael_affeld

My new printshop (who I just started working with, and is conveniently located right down the street) is convinced that although I sized my .ai do***ent artboard to the dimensions of a business card... what HE looks at is a small business card within a 8.5 X 11 do***ent and when it goes to print- it is going to print out the entire 8.5 X 11 dimension, and waste all of the excess. Responses to my earlier post say that do***ent size doesn't matter, and nothing will be wasted, but because I am fairly new to "the game", I am not really sure on how to convince him, and am now looking for answers or alternatives because he "ain't" going to waste all of the excess. I have Acrobat, should I just convert it to pdf and send it off, or should I turn it into a photoshop do***ent, again, lose the vector, but be able to show him a canvas size of a business card? Do you notice frustrations??
Does anyone else run into these problems, and what do you do?
Thanks again for any assistance or info!

dee holmes

In AI, do File/New. A winow pops up. Where it says Window put in your width and height dimesion. Then go to your art docutment and copy all your art. Go to the do***ent that you just sized and paste that into it.

Does that help any?

dee holmes

Gary,

You're kidding, right? They're going to charge a prepress fee for just setting up the file how they need to print it?

Wow! The company I work for needs to get more money. Unless you're talking art time (including wrong separations), or plate charges, or color matches, I don't think the customer should be responsible for setup.

gary_newman@adobeforums.com

Your printer is gooing to print on 8.5 by 11 stock. If you give him artwrok for just one card, he should be able to gang them so that more than one card prints on a sheet. But that's work for him to have to do, and he'll charge you for it. Better for you to do it. Saves you money, makes life easy for your printer, and keeps control of the job with you, where it belongs. Depending on the size of your card, and whether it bleeds, etc, you should be able to fit 8 or more cards on a single sheet of 8.5 by 11, complete with with crop marks.

dee holmes

That's not my point.

wade_zimmerman@adobeforums.com

They usually print four up would you like a template?

gary_newman@adobeforums.com

Some printers prefer to do the setup themselves, but they will all charge whatever they can. Apparently Michael's printer doesn't do setups.

I, for one, take responsibility for the setup because I want to. It's part of the design process. And I can help avoid such things as wrong separations, wasted paper, and overcharges.

scott_weichert@adobeforums.com

Most printers will gladly tell you how they would liek a file set up. All you need do is ask. If you don't ask, yup, they'll set it up how they need it and charge you.

wade_zimmerman@adobeforums.com

Actually this printer is being an idiot anyway. Of course they persist in playing the fool then just draw a box and use Object crop area command and only that area will print and the size of the film being outputted has nothing to do with the size of the do***ent that is entirely control by page set up.

I would tell them off and to stop giving you a hard time and print the damn card.

If that doesn't work then let him know that if they don't start acting like a professional your just going somewhere else, because down the block or not this is not convenient.

doug_katz@adobeforums.com

AGAIN, set up the ARTBOARD (which is functionally equivalent to the
CANVAS or PAGE) to the EXACT dimensions of your business card (just
as Dee suggested). Place your art on that CARD SIZE ARTBOARD. Hand
your printer the file.

Essentially, your printer is telling you he doesn't "get" how to make your
business cards from an 8.5 x 11 artboard because he knows that a business
card is s'posed to be 2 x 3 (or whatever). Crop marks will probably confuse
him too. So you can "teach" him about artboards and crop marks, or you can
give him what he wants. You're not harmed by giving him what he wants.
You MAY be harmed, however, by working with what Wade has so aptly
referred to as an idiot.