Offset printing help: Using Word & PowerPoint as desktop publishing tools for newsletters, price lists, brochures, catalogs, direct mail

Using PowerPoint & Word as desktop publishing programs

You may be tempted to use Microsoft PowerPoint or Word to layout a document that will be printed by your commercial offset printer. These programs are familiar to you and you can achieve results quickly and that's a good thing.

However PowerPoint and Word were not intended for documents to be processed for the offset printing process. I actually called Microsoft once to discuss some issues with them. They told me "Word wasn't designed for that". The good news is you can still use them! However it's important to understand the processes and the shortcomings of these programs.

Instability
The first issue is stability. Word and PowerPoint are not stable programs. Documents don't always look the same when opened on different computers. Anyone who works both at the office and at home realizes this. You might experience different line or page breaks when you print out a Word document at home.

This is most likely a font issue. Believe it or not, fonts of the same name might have subtle differences. Your Arial font at work may not be exactly the same as your Arial at home. Subtle changes in the fonts may result in unintended word wrap.

Another culprit may be different preference settings. Word has a myriad of preferences hidden in multiple places. Some preferences are document specific while others are program specific. If the preferences aren't all the same, unintended results may occur!

Most of the time, this instability isn't a problem. Who cares if the document looks a bit different? So what if the last line from a paragraph is pushed to the next page? You can always print it out at work again on Monday morning. However if you are having 5,000 pieces printed and sent to your customers it may be important.

Color
The second issue is one of color. Word and PowerPoint use color definitions that do not translate well to commercial offset printing. The files can be converted, but again, unintended results may occur.

It is useful to define a few terms. I have simplified these definitions for this article.

RGB color space. Documents created in this color space mix Red, Green and Blue to create other colors. As an example, if an image were intended to be green, it would contain blue and green. Televisions and computer monitors use this color space.
CMYK color space. Documents created in this color space use mixes of Cyan (blue), Magenta (red), Yellow and blacK to represent other colors. This is the color space used in the commercial offset printing process. This technique is often referred to as "four-color process" and was pioneered in 1868. This process became the standard, as the printing process itself was refined in the mid 1900's.
Grayscale. This is the same as black and white.

Power Point and Word use an RGB color space. The files need to be converted to CMYK to be used by a commercial offset printer. The conversion is done in the prepress department.

The conversion process isn't tremendously difficult but the results can be a bit unpredictable. The conversion takes place using software programs with built-in conversion tables. You wouldn't see drastic color shifts but you will see shade differences. So you won't see a red go to blue, but you may see a red go to a lighter shade.

Your printer should show you proofs so you can see what the piece will look like when finally printed. However even if you don't like some colors on the proof it will be difficult to change them. You could make changes to your original document but again, the conversion process is somewhat unpredictable so you wouldn't know what changes to make.

What about black and white documents? For the most part, color isn't an issue. However if you create a document with color graphics the conversion to B/W may alter the appearance. For instance, say you have a nice red and black stop sign. Red for instance, may convert to dark gray. This would be a problem if you included a STOP sign graphic in your document. The resulting B/W sign may show little differentiation between the word STOP and the background.

Graphics
Images used in commercial offset printing need to be high resolution. That means they are 300 DPI at the size they are used in the document. A low-resolution image will have a tendency to look jagged. Certainly if you get images off the internet they are not high enough. Low-resolution images are a problem no matter what program you use. However most people don't have the tools to evaluate them on their computers. The only advice I can give you is to try and get high-resolution images if you are preparing a document for printing at a commercial offset printer.

Solutions
There are three ways to get around these problems. The first is to use professional desktop publishing software such as Adobe PhotoShop, Illustrator, InDesign or Quark Xpress. These powerful programs will allow you to create top-notch documents. However these programs are very expensive and there is a steep learning curve. Unless you plan on doing lots of desktop publishing and want to spend a lot of time learning, this may not be a suitable option.

The other option is to pay someone else to do the desktop publishing for you. In reality this may cost less than you think. There is a wide range of folks doing desktop now. You should be able to find someone who does this out of his or her home at an attractive rate.

The last option is to make a PDF of your document and send it to your printer. For most people this is the option you will take and it's really not a bad one. You need to purchase the full version of Adobe Acrobat, a $300.00 program. You need to follow a few special instructions so the document comes out correctly, but these are not hard. In fact, we have an article that covers everything you need to know on this site.

Making a PDF will alleviate the font issues because the PDF is made on your computer using your fonts. However the color shifts will still be an issue. The files will still be RGB and need to be converted. Finally, PDF's are, for the most part, not editable by your printer. That means if you have changes at the proof stage, you will need to supply her with a new PDF.