So you designed your own wedding invitations, creating the graphics yourself, writing the text and carefully choosing the proper font. Everything looked great on screen. The graphics were just right, the text flowed perfectly, and everything fit on the page. You had them printed in color, at great expense, at a local service bureau, and it was all wrong. The colors were way off, the text was truncated, and some elements were not even on the page. What happened?
     In the real world, what you see (on your monitor) and what you get (from a printing press) are two different things completely. But if you follow these twelve steps, the two can be made to closely approximate one another.

1. Use a professional quality page layout program such as QuarkXPress or Adobe PageMaker. In document setup, set your page size to equal the size of your final printed piece.

2. If you are using placed vector graphics, convert text to paths in your drawing program before importing the graphic into your page layout program.

3. Bitmap images should be saved at the final placed size and at the appropriate resolution for the output format.

4. Manipulation of graphics should be done in the paint or draw program, rather than the layout program. This includes mirror, crop, rotate, and flip. Link your graphic files, rather than embedding them, when you place the files in you page layout program.

5. Simplify graphics as much as possible in the paint or draw program. Delete stray points, empty paths, blank text blocks, extra channels, etc. If the printed piece is one color, do not save the graphic
   in color, but use grayscale or black and white.

6. Be consistent in defining colors. If your piece is to be color separated, be sure that all colors are defined using the CMYK color space. Graphics should be assigned the appropriate color in the draw or paint program where they were created or acquired. If you are printing with spot colors, be sure that each element is assigned the proper color.

7. In your draw program, save all images in Encapsulated PostScript format (EPS), uncompressed. In your paint program, save all images in Tagged Image File Format (TIFF), uncompressed.

8. If you are color separating your printed piece, it is a good idea to test print the separations. This will insure that you have assigned colors properly and are not printing unneeded plates. You will need access to a PostScript laser printer.

9. Use the remote output utility in your page layout program to collect all the files you will need for the service bureau. In QuarkXPress, the feature is called Collect for Output. In Adobe PageMaker, the feature is called Prepare for Service Bureau. Check the box to include all fonts.

10. Avoid close registration situations (where two different colors touch or come very close to each other) if at all possible. Close registration will increase your costs. If you must have close registration, discuss trapping with your printer or service bureau before submitting your file.

11. Print a composite proof, at 100 percent size, in color if appropriate, with all crops and bleeds, to submit with your disk. Be sure that all changes you have made are included in this final proof. Clearly label your disk, including all the files and only the files the printer or service bureau will need to output your document.

12. When you receive a printed proof, examine it very carefully. Place separations on a light table and double check all ink assignments. Clearly label any corrections and report them immediately. Once you sign off on a final proof, the printer or service bureau is not responsible for any errors.

    Consider your output format when setting the resolution of your bitmap graphics. If you are preparing files for the Web or for monitor viewing, as in a presentation program, 72 dpi (dots per inch) is the proper resolution. In printing, the resolution should be twice the lpi, or lines per inch, of the output device. For newsprint quality printing at 85 lpi, your resolution should be 170 dpi. For magazine quality printing, usually 133 or 150 lpi, set resolution at 250-300 dpi. For art magazine or high-quality book printing at 175-200 lpi, resolution should be 350-400 dpi. For large-format graphics, such as murals and posters which will be viewed at a distance, resolution should be set at 75-150 dpi, depending on the distance the piece will be from the viewer.
    Through all of this, the most important key is communication. Talk to your printer or service bureau before you prepare your files, while you are preparing your files, and after you submit your files. Ask questions. Do not be afraid that you will appear unknowledgeable. This is a very complex operation and you can not expect to know everything.
    Keep in mind that color matching is not exact. Output from your color inkjet, for instance, will not match the final output from a four color press. The object here is to come as close as possible. If your are using spot colors, specify Pantone inks so that you and your printer or service bureau will have a common reference.
    If you have closely adhered to the twelve steps, and have maintained close communication with your printer or service bureau, your files should coast easily through the RIP (raster image processor) and be rendered by the imagesetter (final output device) in a form that is virtually identical to what you expected.
   Have a great honeymoon.