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Subject:Re: printing from Word From:"Brierley, Sean" <Brierley -at- QUODATA -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 16 Jul 1999 09:37:43 -0400
Hallo:
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Irene Wong [mailto:wongword -at- OZEMAIL -dot- COM -dot- AU]
>>>
>>>I have a long document (about 90 pages) in MSWord 97 for
>>>Windows 95. It
>>>is tagged to a template but also has some "manual"
>>>formatting/finetuning. If the template is attached to it, it
>>>is fine. It
>>>can be moved from pc tp pc and looks like the author intended.
>>>
>>>How can I send this electronically to a printer?
What do you mean by a "printer." I will assume you mean an offset press or
Docutech.
>>>Can it be sent in Word (presumably with a copy of the template)?
Yes. I have done this. It doesn't work well. The pre-press department at
your service bureau needs to be skilled in Word, and they typically aren't.
They will also charge a pretty penny (and deserve it) for this kind of work.
Plus, you are likely to suffer style changes, in that special, unprompted
Word way. Further, font spacing and pagination will be subject to minor
changes due tot he change in printer. Bottom line: don't do it this way.
>>>Can the formatting be "frozen/unlinked" so that the template isn't
>>>needed?
Yes. Here's how I'd do it. Find out from your service bureau what printer
driver you need to use. Create a PostScript print file from your Word
document. Supply the print file to your service bureau. You should be all
set after that. Creating the print file also has the benefit of freezing
pagination and preventing those on-the-fly, unprompted, style changes (it's
a feature, I swear <vbg>.
As an alternative, you could print out camera-ready copy at your site and
supply that for offset printing or scanning into a Docutech.
>>>Can I send a pdf of the document to the printer?
You could, because all you would need to do is Distil the PostScript print
file you make above. Certainly, this is one way you can inspect the print
file, however, you should work with your service bureau on what their needs
are. Some vendors will take PDFs, I just am unsure why the extra step is
necessary--and you must set up Distiller correctly.
