problems printing on offset press with MP

[Larry]

I have Microsoft Publisher 2002. I used it to prepare a 16 page newsletter.
The newsletter has both text and pictures (originally from a digital camera).

I printed one copy using a laser color printer and text and pictures looked
very good.

Then I sent the newsletter out for printing 500 copies. The printer used an
offset press. The pictures in the newsletter printed using the offset press
did not look good.

The printer said there were three reasons that the pictures did not look good:
(1) Microsoft Publisher should not be used for publications printed on an
offset press. Pagemaker would have been better.
(2) My image files were jpegs. I should have used TIFF or EPS files for the
image files.
(3) My pictures were in RGB mode and I should have changed them to CYMK for
printing on the offset press.

I am going to resubmit my job to the printer (fortunately at no cost to me)

Here are some questions that I would appreciate assistance:

(1) I wanted to convert the newsletter from Publisher to Pagemaker. But I have
been told that Pagemaker 7.0 only imports Publisher 2000 files, not those from
2002. Would it be possible to save my Publisher 2002 file as a 2000 file and
then try to import it into Pagemaker?

(2) Should I convert my jpeg files to TIFF files in Photoshop and then insert
them in Publisher?

(3) It is easy in Photoshop to convert the jpeg files in RGB mode to CYMK
mode. But when I convert TIFF files from RGB to CMYK and insert them into
Publisher, the colors apprear distorted. Why does this occur?

Any help on these issues would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Larry

 

[°°°MS°Publisher°°°]

Find a printer who is not living in the dark ages and is such a disgusting
old unhelpful grump.

You are far better using Adobe Acrobat 6.0 full version.
You make a PDF file and convert it to full 4 process colour in Acrobat.
You have full control over the file and how it prints and it takes those
difficult outdated antiquated dumb poorly educated printers out of the loop
tampering with your file.

Unfortunately for some unknown reason, printers are in the majority a grumpy
poorly educated and trained mob, fail to keep up to date with technology and
progress, just hate to help and assist people that do their own artwork, and
are stuck and rusted in their groove in hell.

 

[Ed Bennett]

A small child turns to Ed, and exclaims: "Look! Look! A post from Larry

The printer said there were three reasons that the pictures did not
look good: (1) Microsoft Publisher should not be used for
publications printed on an offset press. Pagemaker would have been
better.

This is not true. Microsoft Publisher files will normally happily output to
an offset press if the operator is not a trained monkey.

(2) My image files were jpegs. I should have used TIFF or EPS
files for the image files.

Publisher is iffy with TIFF files, due to the number of variants there are,
and EPS files give no real advantage when used for inserting pictures. JPG
files are not the best filetype ever as it uses lossy compression, losing
quality from your image. I would highly recommend PNG for future image
work, but if the publication was good on a laser printer the JPG shouldn't
have caused problems at the press.

(3) My pictures were in RGB mode and I should have changed them to
CYMK for printing on the offset press.

This would be pointless in Publisher. Publisher generates RGB output unless
you tell it to print separations, and it tends to choke on CMYK files.

(1) I wanted to convert the newsletter from Publisher to Pagemaker.
But I have been told that Pagemaker 7.0 only imports Publisher 2000
files, not those from 2002. Would it be possible to save my Publisher
2002 file as a 2000 file and then try to import it into Pagemaker?

Yes, but you would have to do a lot of work on the file to get it to look
any good. Conversion to Publisher 2000 format loses a lot of formatting,
and I have no idea how much formatting is lost in a Publisher > PageMaker
conversion.

(2) Should I convert my jpeg files to TIFF files in Photoshop and
then insert them in Publisher?

No, Publisher doesn't like Photoshop TIFF files. Converting to PNG would
not do that much good, as JPGs only lose quality each time you save them, so
if you're not editing the pictures, then converting to PNG won't do much.

(3) It is easy in Photoshop to convert the jpeg files in RGB mode to
CYMK mode. But when I convert TIFF files from RGB to CMYK and insert
them into Publisher, the colors apprear distorted. Why does this
occur?

Because Publisher doesn't like CMYK TIFFs.

Any help on these issues would be greatly appreciated.

Your printer is almost certainly eligible for a free copy of Publisher 2003
under the Preferred Service Provider Program (PSPP). Publisher 2003 will
open your 2002 files with little or no formatting loss, and can output CMYK
composite PostScript that your printer should love.

 

[Ed Bennett]

A small child turns to Ed, and exclaims: "Look! Look! A post from Donna

Ed I work for a printer and we have always preached use tiff files.
What seems to be the problem between Publisher and Tiffs anyway?

Publisher only fully supports a few of the many different standards of TIFF
around. TIFF files from many applications, therefore, do not import
properly into Publisher.

I know there is one, I'm on another thread right now with picture
issues. Jeez if we tell them JPEGS - you can imagine what we'll get.

Yes, which is why I have always recommended PNGs.

Guess we could photoshop them then save at maximum quality (they don't
lose any then, right?)

It depends on the application. Often it will still lose some quality at
hard edges.

And what's
PNG???

PNG is an acronym for Portable Network Graphics - a standardised lossless
format with a greater degree of compression than TIFF, with full 24-bit
colour support and support for alpha layers.