We are happy with most PC files. All images for litho printing are produced using a high quality imagesetter.

If you wish to do your own design you can provide us with:

1) File on disk (CD or DVD, USB Flash drive, floppy or Zip 100M), or emailed. If you intend to give us a file on disk or via email it is a good idea to provide the fonts as well. We have hundreds of fonts but 1 missing font will often change the whole layout of a page. We also ask for a hard copy from your computer printer (this can be faxed or posted if necessary), or a JPEG via disk or email.

Large files can be sent to us via ftp. Use a browser to connect to www.drivevehq.com. Sign up to the free 1G service, upload the file and then share the file with mail@designgraphic.co.uk. We then receive notification of the file & can download it immediately.

If you wish we can send you proofs though this service rather than email. This can be quicker than email & does not require signing up to DriveHQ.

We can accept artwork made from most programs:

Word, CorelDraw, Pagemaker, Microsoft Publisher, Photoshop, InDesign, Access Reports. Excel

We also accept more general file formats such as PDF*, eps, JPEG, TIF.

For Your Information..

Word (versions up to 2003)
This is fine for text files or whole pages which don't need any changes. If spot colour is needed, we will usually copy the text into another program.
Always provide the fonts unless they are standard ones.

CorelDraw (CDR - up to version X3)
This is fine for letterheads, business cards, leaflets & flyers, small booklets etc. If using colours, please use Pantone colours. With files with small amounts of text, it is sometimes worth converting all the text to curves - this avoids any font problems. Alternatively, when saving a document, with version 9 or later, fonts can be embedded. Different version of CorelDraw can give slightly different results, Best to use a recent one.

Pagemaker (P65, PC up to 6.5)
Fine for long documents and for straight forward layout pages.

Publisher (PUB - version up to 2003)
Okay for single colour, printing or small amounts of spot colour.
Always provide the fonts unless they are standard ones.

Powerpoint (PPT)
Fine for presentations.

Photoshop (PSD)
Mainly used for handling photos or other bitmap images. Resolution for litho printing should be 300dpi. Images which are designed to bleed off the edge should allow for 2mm to be trimmed off. Designs using fonts should be saved in Photoshop PDF format with the "Embed Fonts" box ticked.

InDesign (INDD - version CS3)
Okay for single colour, spot colour or full colour. Any non standard fonts should be saved separately.

Access Reports (MDB - version 2003)
Used for data summaries, single colour,

Acrobat (PDF )
Fine for single colour or full colour. Also okay for spot colour for short documents. Some programs can produce these types of files and they are usually a good way of transfering artwork if we don't have the original program. When making PDF files, please make sure all fonts are embedded (ocasionally fonts cannot be embedded, in which case we will need the original font if it is a non-standard one). We use software which can change PDF files in all sorts of ways, but this is designed for last minute small changes. Any substantial changes to a document should be made in the original Program followed by a new PDF being made.

EPS
These page files are produced by selecting any Postscript printer and then choosing to print to file rather than paper. If you don't have a Postscript printer, install one as if you had. The fiIes which are made should have a suffix of ps or prn, 1 file per page.

JPEG & TIF files
Most drawing programs and some page layout programs can save in these bitmap formats. If the image is purely photos or similar a resolution of at least 200 dpi is best. If the image contains text or line drawings, then these file formats are not really suitable but if they have to be used choose a resolution as high as possible (the file size could be very large).