File Preparation

How Fast Will My Book Get Printed?

Note: If you are reading this page, we assume that you have some basic knowledge of laying out a book and working with Adobe Photoshop (or similar programs). If you do not understand anything you are reading then you need to locate/hire someone who can help you get your product ready to print.
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Acceptable Formats

Currently we only accept PDF, PSD, PNG and TIFF files.

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PDF Files

Lots of programs now come with the ability to create PDF files. Unfortunately, these programs usually create low-resolution PDFs—good for internet viewing and NOT good for printing. You will need to acquire Acrobat Distiller. This will allow you to create print-ready PDFs.

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Once you open Acrobat Distiller, it will give you several panels of options, but here are the important ones:

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Job Settings is set to Press Optimized
General Tab resolution set to 2400 dpi
Compression for Color & Grayscale Images set at 300 dpi, no compression
Compression for Monochrome Images set at: 2400 dpi, Compression: CCITT Group 4,
Compression Text and Line Art: selected
All fonts Embed

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Keep everything else in the settings as they are.
This should make a large PDF file, something you will not normally be used to when making PDFs. If the file doesn’t look significantly larger than normal, then you most likely did not achieve the result. Have a look at your settings again and try once more.

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Note: Make sure that all of your color images imbedded in your PDF are CYMK. If you forget to check this, you may get non-pleasing color. Unfortunately, we cannot change it for you, You will have to distill the book again and send it to us.

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TIFF Files

Creating covers as TIFFs insures that a printer will have to do something drastically wrong to screw up your cover, thus ensuring less errors and larger files. Luckily we live in a time where a 100meg file can transfer in minutes and not hours—as in days-of-old.

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Make sure your TIFF file is 300dpi, RGB or CMYK and has a 1/4″ bleed around all sides except the inside or gutter.

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Preparing Your Cover

Soft back covers require a 1/4” bleed. Calculate the spine width and add it to the front and back cover widths and your cover should be the correct size!

—Cover width (.25″ +cover width +spine width +cover width +.25″)

—Cover Height (.25″ +cover height +.25″)

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All hard covers require a 1/2” bleed. Calculate the spine and add .25″ on either side.  Add it to the front and back cover widths and your cover should be the correct size!

—Cover width (.5″ +cover width +.25″+spine width+.25″ +cover width +.5″)

—Cover Height (.5″ +cover height +.5″)

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Calculate Your Spine Width

To calculate the correct spine width for your cover, enter the total number of pages, including front and back matter and any blank pages.

60# Offset: Perfect bound spine width is page count x .002435 (x16 for 16ths of an inch measurements)

80# Offset: Perfect bound spine width is page count x .00325 (x16 for 16ths of an inch measurements)