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MECHANICAL SPECIFICATIONS

T&D Magazine - Electricity Today is an information resource for the electric power industry.

Electronic Art:

Our Pre-Press department is equipped to handle a wide variety of file formats, on both Macintosh and Windows operating systems. However, to ensure smooth and timely job processing it is a good idea to adhere to the following, application specific, file submission guidelines:

MECHANICAL REQUIREMENTS (in inches)

Bleed Size: 8-5/8 x 11-1/8 Trim Size: 8-1/8 x 10-5/8 D.P.S.: 16- 1/4 x 10-5/8 D.P.S. (Bleed) 16-3/4 x 11-1/8
Unit	Wide	Deep

2/3 v.	4-1/2	10
2/3 h.	7	6-12
1/2 v.	3-3/8	10
1/2 h.	7	4-7/8
1/2 isl.	4-1/2	7-1/2
1/3 v.	2-1/8	10
1/3 h.	7	3-1/4
1/3 sq.	4-1/2	4-7/8
1/4 v.	3-3/8	4-7/8
1/4 h.	7	2-1/4
1/6 v.	2-1/2	4-3/4
PRINTING PROCESS: Offset


BINDIDNG METHOD: Saddle-stitched


LINE-SCREEN: 133-150 lpi


MATERIAL REQUIREMENTS

Electronic: We prefer receiving material in an electronic format. Film: Offset color & 4 colour: negative film, right reading, emulsion down. In either case color proofs must be supplied. If no color proof is supplied, we will do our best to match colors, but we cannot guarantee a perfect match.
PRODUCTION CHARGES

Extra as quoted.

OuarkXpress:

Must include all linked pictures, logos and graphics (scanned or vector based). All colour pictures should be CMYK, preferably saved in TIFF or EPS format. Black and white scanned images should be converted to grayscale in Photoshop (please make sure that they are not RGB or CMYK). Duotones should be created preferably in Photoshop and care must be taken to ensure that the spot colours defined in Photoshop match the corresponding designations in QuarkXpress. It is useful for this purpose to have "Short Pantone names" clicked on in the Photoshop General Preferences dialogue box as this will ensure that both programs are referring to the same Pantone colour. Wherever possible try to avoid colourizing black and white pictures in QuarkXpress as this will sometimes result in unpredictable colour separation results at the output stage. It is possible to produce a job this way but corrections may be required to the file at extra cost.
All fonts pertaining to the job should be included, both screen and printer. Do not forget to include fonts that have been used in Illustrator eps files (logos etc.) It is helpful to use Quark's "Collect for Output" command and allow the program to copy all job files onto a blank transfer disk.

General Guidelines for Scanned Pictures:

When we output plates from our CTP system or film from our Imagesetter, we normally use a linescreen value of 150-175 LPI (lines per inch). To maintain the high quality look that such a fine linesereen produces it is best that any scanned pictures contained in the job be at a conespondingly high resolution. As a general rule, a linescreen value of 150 LPI requires that the scanned image have a resolution of 300 DPI when used at 100% of its size. Increasing a scan's physical size in the page layout application results in degradation of quality which becomes very evident if the original resolution is not very high to begin with. Try to scan images at or near their final size and at a final resolution as close to 300 DPI as possible. When viewing scans, always use a properly calibrated monitor to ensure colour accuracy.

Guidelines for creating PDF files:

There are two basic steps in creating a PDF file; writing a postscript file and then distilling it

From your page layout application write a printer file (.ps or .prn file), making sure a postscript printer is selected in the chooser.
Registration should be "Centered", Bleed set at 0.25" and Marks offset at l8pt. Separations should be left unchecked, even for a 4 colour job (we are using composite colour workflow).
Under "Setup" a postscript printer PPD should be selected and the paper width set to approximately 1" larger than the trim size.
Under "Output" select Print Colours: Composne CMYK.
Under "Options" just make sure that "Output" is set to normal, "Data" to binary and "OPI" set to include images.
Under Print > Printer > General> Save as File > Data Format is Binary and Font Inclusion is set to All.
Finally tinder Print> Printer > Destination select File and then write your Postscript file to the destination disk.
Launch Acrobat Distiller making sure that in "Job options", Press Optimized is selected
Under File > Open find the .ps file and open it.
Save the PDF file to your destination disk.

These general guidelines will work with most jobs but because of the multitude of options and configurations of PPD files some files may not be Distilled successfully. Some experimentation may be necessary to find the appropriate settings for your individual system and software configuration. It is a good idea, whenever possible, to include with your PDF file a copy of your .ps (Postscript) file so that we may re-distill it if we encounter problems.

Email:

You can send us files via email at carol@electricityforum.com. Please compress your files before sending them and include all scans, digital artwork and fonts. To compress a file you can use Stuffit (Mac platform) or WinZip (Windows platform). Generally, email attachments should not be over 2Mb - if your files are larger than this, please contact us and we will provide ftp (file transfer protol) instructions. PLEASE FAX US COPIES OF ALL ADS THAT ARE SENT VIA EMAIL OR FTP (905-686-1078).

Proofs:

Please submit a printout of each page so we can verify the accuracy of our output. These can be laser or colour inkjet proofs and must represent the most recent changes to your artwork. Mark clearly any notes or special instructions. Without a proof of each ad, we can not guarantee the appearance of the ad. Without a colour proof, we cannot guarantee colour matches.

Media Formats: