Commercial Printing Guidelines and Information

Commercial Jobs must be at the Monitor at least 3 days prior to your scheduled print date. All customer corrections must be completed by this deadline. These deadlines are absolute and are designed to give us time to preflight your files and contact you if there are any problems.

TEMPLATES: All commercial print jobs are delivered in PDF file format and must be composed on a Concord Monitor template in the layout program of your choice. We provide templates for the following professional layout programs:

• Adobe InDesign
• Quark Xpress
• Adobe Pagemaker

To download one of our templates click here.

Note: If you opt to use a different program to layout your publication (such as Microsoft Publisher or another) you will need to convert your finished files to PDF files and some extra prepress time must be alloted for us to manipulate your files after they are delivered.

GRAPHICS / TEXT:

If creating graphics in Adobe Illustrator be sure that OVERPRINT FILL and OVERPRINT STROKE are unchecked on all TEXT and OUTLINES. Very important if using WHITE TEXT over a colored background. If left check unpredictable printing results may happen. You can find this information by selecting the text or outlines and checking the Attributes window in Illustrator.

PHOTOGRAPHS / HALFTONES:

Any photographic image or halftone for your publication should be prepared with the following key points in mind in order to ensure your reproduction quality:

• Scans should be captured at 100% of the desired reproduction size or as close as possible. (as opposed to scaling within your layout program)
• Resolution should be 180 to 200 dpi for the Concord Monitor press environment.
• Color mode for images should always be either Grayscale or CMYK. Never RGB.
• Image file formats should either be .tif, .jpg or .eps.
• Digital photos are resized properly by bring the resolution up and simultaneously bringing the overall print size down. Typically this is done in an image editing program such as Adobe Photoshop by deselecting the "Resample Image" box when resizing.

LINEART: Any lineart should be scanned using the 'lineart' setting on your scanner. The 'lineart' setting scans the artwork as a bitmap and will provide you with a much cleaner line than scanning it greyscale. All lineart should be saved as a 800 dpi TIFF.

SCREENS: If your document contains any halftone screens, please make sure that the screen percentage is no less than 10%. Lighter screens are not reccomended.

SPOT COLORS: The Concord Monitor's press has a specific spot color pallete that you may choose from. A printed copy of the pallette is available upon request.

The most commonly used spot colors are:

• Reflex Blue (100% C, 40% M, 0% Y, 0% K)
• X-Mas Red (0% C, 100% M, 40% Y, 0% K)
• Green (100% C, 0%M, 100% Y, 0% K)
• Orange (0% C, 100% M, 100% Y, 0% K)

...and of course, Cyan, Magenta, or Yellow.

When you specify a spot color in your pallette in your document, please be sure that the "process" option is selected instead of "spot" and that "CMYK" is the color model. A CMYK match will be created.

PANTONE COLORS: We cannot reproduce any PANTONE Matching System (PMS) colors as spot color. It is your responsibility to create a process color match if you would like to mimic a PMS color.

LINE SCREEN SETTINGS: Composing for a line screen of 90 lpi is recommended. For best results, make sure that your image resolution (at 100% size) is twice the required linescreen. Example: For a line screen of 90 lpi, the resolution of your image should be 180 dpi (dots per inch).

CONTENT IMAGE AREA: The "safe" area size in which your ads, text and any content expected to reproduce is a maximum of 10.25" x 13.0" for a single Tabloid page. The exact location of this area is clearly marked by guides and margins on the templates that we provide.

FTP: FTP (File Transfer Protocol) All Commercial print jobs are delivered as PDF files to our FTP server. FTP software is easy to use, with minimal cost. We can help you get aquainted with this process and set you up with your own account to access to our FTP server. There is no charge for this.

A Word About E-Mail: The single most important thing to accept before using e-mail to send any time-sensitive document is that E-MAIL IS NOT A GUARANTEED MEDIUM. When you send your document it could reach its destination in a matter of seconds or not at all. Files do occasionally get "lost in space" and there is no dependable way to trace an e-mail to find out where it is. If you are sending an important file via e-mail, please call us to confirm receipt. The email address for our Commercial Department is: commercial@cmonitor.com

Most layout applications have the ability to use Acrobat Distiller or export PDF's directly from your document layout program. It is extremely important for you to know for sure what Job Options are being applied by Distiller when creating any PDF files in preparation for print.

In newer versions of Acrobat Distiller, one of the default presets is called "Press Quality". It is acceptable to use the "Press Quality" option for your Concord Monitor job files, but it will cause unnecessarily large file sizes and may not suit your specific needs as well as creating your own custom set.

It is recommended that you aquaint yourself with editing Distiller's job options and follow these guidelines: Note: Depending on your software version and platform, the screens you encounter may look different than what you see here but the general choices are the same.

GENERAL:

File Options: Compatibility: Adobe Acrobat 4.0 (PDF 1.3)

Optomize for Fast Web View (unchecked)

Embed Thumbnails (unchecked)

Auto-Rotate Pages (unchecked)

Binding: Left

Resolution: 1200 dpi
Page size should be whatever your document size is. (Normally 11" x 14" for Tabloid Publications)

COMPRESSION:

Color Images:

Bicubic Downsampling at 180 dpi

Compression: Automatic or JPEG

Quality: Maximum

Grayscale Images:

Bicubic Downsampling at 180 dpi

Compression: Automatic or JPEG

Quality: Maximum

Monochrome Images:

Bicubic Downsampling at 600 dpi

Compression: CCITT Group 4

Anti-Alias to gray (unchecked)

Compress text and lineart (checked)

Fonts:

Embed All Fonts (checked)

Subset Embedded Fonts When Percent Of Characters Used Is Less Than: 100% (unchecked)

When Embedding Fails: Warn and Continue

Color:

Adobe Color Settings:

Settings File: Color Management Off or Leave Color Unchanged

All other options are grayed out or unchecked.

Advanced:

Options:

Use prologue.ps / epilogue.ps (unchecked)

Allow Postscript File to Override Job Options (unchecked)

Preserve Level 2 copypage Semantics (checked)

Save Portable Job Ticket inside PDF File (unchecked)

Illustrator Overprint Mode (unchecked)

Convert Gradients to Smooth Shades (checked)

ASCII Format (unchecked)

Document Structuring Conventions (DSC):

Process DSC Comments (unchecked) All other options should be grayed out.

Once you have entered and confirmed all your settings for your Job Options, select "Save As..." and name your new Job Options "Concord Monitor" (or something else easy to identify). Typically, when using these Job Options, the result will be PDF files that meet our requirements and print correctly.

NOTE: Some of these options can be changed without compromising your reproduction by advanced users.

• Regular NEWSPRINT PAPER - To download click here (2.2 MB).
• Special BRIGHT WHITE papers - To download click here (2.2 MB).

Choose the one that matches the stock you normally print on and assign it when you prepare your CMYK images.
If you do not know which profile to use please check with our Commercial Department at extension 204 or 205.

MAC PLATFORM - TABLOID PUBLICATIONS:

• Quark Xpress: To download a template for Quark Xpress 4.0 or above click here
• Adobe Pagemaker: To download a template for Adobe Pagemaker 6.5 or above click here
• Adobe InDesign: To download a template for Adobe Indesign 1.5 or above click here

PC PLATFORM - TABLOID PUBLICATIONS:

• Quark Xpress: To download a template for Quark Xpress 4.0 or above click here
• Adobe Pagemaker: To download a template for Adobe Pagemaker 6.5 or above click here

(Currently we only provide InDesign templates for the Mac Platform , call if you have questions.)

MAC PLATFORM - BROADSHEET PUBLICATIONS:

• Quark Xpress: To download a template for Quark Xpress 4.0 or above click here
• Adobe Pagemaker: To download a template for Adobe Pagemaker 6.5 or above click here
• Adobe InDesign: To download a template for Adobe Indesign 1.5 or above click here

PC PLATFORM - BROADSHEET PUBLICATIONS:

• Quark Xpress: To download a template for Quark Xpress 4.0 or above click here
• Adobe Pagemaker: To download a template for Adobe Pagemaker 6.5 or above click here

(Currently we only provide InDesign templates for the Mac Platform , call if you have questions.)

Questions? Please call us!

In N.H. 1-800-464-3415 * (603) 224-5301 x204 (603) 228-8238 FAX

For SCHEDULING / PREPRESS: Kevin x204 or Shellie x205