Since our main claim to fame is fast turn around , customer files need to be ready to go when they get her. If they are missing fonts, images or other problems that don’t allow us to print, it can get hairy. Especially if the customer can’t be contacted and is expecting the output the next day.
In order to to make an EPS or PDF document saved from Corel or Illustrator, spot colors should be converted to process unless you are submitting artwork for die cutting. More on this later.
The first critical step is to be sure to convert your fonts to paths
Step1
Create the text in Illustrator
Step 2 Select The Text
Step 3: Select Create outlines in the Text Menu:
Corel Draw
1. Go to the Edit menu and choose select all–>text
2. Go to the Arrange Menu and select Convert to Curves.
Doing this will insure that the formatting of your text and font choices will be intact when the files are sent. We have seen many files where the Designer still sends us an Illustrator file and forgets to create outlines of her text. When it arrives the text is garbled and unformatted as illustrator is not really great at picking a font that closely resembles what was sent. That’s good if a designer is very picky about typography. It’s bad when the client is in a rush and the designer is no where to be found.
Saving to PDFs works most times as long as the check box is enabled for embedding fonts. The check box is not easy to find either. Many clients automatically assume that saving to PDF will embed the Fonts. In a majority of jobs, that is what happens. But we have seen enough jobs come in where they didn’t come in embedded. That creates the same problems as the illutsrator file. As many times a designer’s client is the one who is in possession of the PDF. The designer is nowhere to be found. That leaves it up to us to either find the missing font or get it’s nearest cousin while paying close attention to the typography.
