Hi Bent:
I would regard encoding JPEG into an EPS file as a waste of time: all you
are doing is increasing the file size. A JPEG is a compressed bitmap (a
raster graphic) of fixed resolution.
A JPEG that prints well on a Laser printer will be huge (a megabyte or so).
A JPEG of emailable size will be fuzzy. There's no "option b"
I "know" that JPEG is very popular in the professional pre-press market.
But they don't care about file size, and they never send stuff by email
They typically use machines with 2 to 4 gigabytes of memory and dual CPUs.
They typically transfer images by disk or CD-ROM, and think nothing of a
one-page document that occupies 250 megabytes. I work in the corporate
market where resources are a little more constrained than that
I see Bill recommends JPEG, and I agree with his points, PROVIDED you don't
want to email these things. Personally, I would be deeply grateful if *I*
did not receive an email from someone with a JPEG letterhead
To enhance
my sense of gratitude, I have my email junk filter set up to make sure that
I never see any email with an attachment that big
To get good printing, you need a Vector format image as opposed to a bitmap.
Encoding a JPEG into an EPS does not turn the JPEG into a vector format, it
simply "encapsulates" the fuzzy JPEG bitmap in a format that a PostScript
Printer can handle. To get a high resolution, the file needs to start out
as a vector and stay that way all the way to the printer.
Vectors are mathematical formulae that describe the shape of each picture
element: they have no "resolution", they can scale infinitely and print at
the native resolution of the printer. Unfortunately, "standardisation"
remains a distant hope in the vector format wars. Outside the "Professional
Graphics" arena, getting a good result can be a real lottery.
Word on the Mac supports only the graphics formats supported by QuickTime.
These are listed in the Help topic "Graphics file types you can use in
documents" (which updates from time to time).
The vector formats that I would consider suitable for letterheads are:
€ Compressed Macintosh PICT (PCZ)
€ Compressed Windows Enhanced Metafile (EMZ)
€ Compressed Windows Metafile (WMZ)
€ Encapsulated PostScript File (EPSF, EPS)
€ Enhanced Windows Metafile (EMF)
€ Macintosh Picture (PICT)
€ Portable Document Format (PDF)
€ Windows Metafile (WMF)
The ones I would email to someone who might be using Windows are:
€ Encapsulated PostScript File (EPSF, EPS)
€ Enhanced Windows Metafile (EMF)
€ Macintosh Picture (PICT)
€ Portable Document Format (PDF)
€ Windows Metafile (WMF)
Historically, EPS has always been the format of choice. It has no
significant limitations, it's quite compact, and every computer used to be
able to handle it. Regrettably the advent of cheap inkjet printers has
changed all that: they can't decode PostScript, which is what an EPS
contains.
Of course, a vector picture can be huge too: a complex illustration with
several embedded fonts will easily top a megabyte. But no good graphics
designer would ever design a letterhead of such complexity: it simply
doesn't work as a letterhead!
Nowadays, I use the following rule of thumb to choose: If it's going to a
Macintosh, use PICT, if it's going to Windows, use WMF, if you don't know
where it's going, use... Ummm... Probably PICT. Later versions of Windows
convert PICT quite competently, older versions of Mac can't convert WMF at
all
Of course, both PICT and WMF have limitations: they are simple, compact
formats designed for small size and fast speed.
For a good discussion of the pros and cons, see here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/adobemag/archive/pdfs/9704dsok.pdf
No letter-head designer "should" produce a letterhead that will overtax
either PICT or RGB: if they do, it's a rotten letterhead... But it happens.
The most common mistake made by graphics designers is to send CMYK colours
instead of RGB colours. Only professional graphics applications can handle
CMYK. No Microsoft Office applications can do so.
Graphics people will do one of three things when you point this out to them.
Some will shrug uncomprehendingly. Sack them: they don't know enough about
their business to be worth your business paying them.
Some will say "Oh, ummm... Sorry about that, you need to use Adobe
Illustrator for those." Sack them too: they are trying to make themselves
indispensable at your expense.
Some will blush deeply and have harsh words with whoever did this to your
job. Send your business their way: they have understood that their job is
to know all this stuff so you don't have to
Hope this helps
Thanks for the tip, John. Sorry about the delay in coming back to you,
but its the holidays...A question: will it function with at EPS file
who is JPEG encoded? [in Photoshop its possible to save eps files with
jpeg encoding, for lower weight Without any encoding on a bitmap file,
the file ends up over 10 MB anyway. This because the user is demanding
a certain quality when printed out, and that the graphic is quite
elaborate and big and can´t be «sliced» in bits to remove white
areas].
John said:
Word on the PC saves the expanded (BMP) version of a graphic along with the
PNG version.
We normally recommend EPS for things such as letter heads: these give
printable resolution without the file bloat.
I have made a word file with a png graphic file as a background in
header and footer,
and use this as a letter. On the mac, this make a file who is aprox.
200 KB -also when typed in, an resaved. But when i do the same in a PC
version of word, the resaved file is over 11 MB ! [before i do
anything with it, its still 200 KB on the PC] Have tried everything.
Someone out there who has faced the same problem, and solved it?
Please help!
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Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie <
[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410
--
Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie <
[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410
