First time designing Catalogs - Tips? Advice?

**narcisis** · 08-25-2003, 09:23 PM

Hey fellas,

I've just been contracted todo to catalogs for a client and I had a few questions. You see this will be my first time designing a catalog, I've done ads for print before, just not a catalog.

This won't be going to an official "print house" but rather to a Kinkos. I was thinking I could do every page and just make a PDF. Then my client could just take it to a kinkos and print it out (on both sides too I hope, kinkos does that right?).

Is there anything I should know? I was gonna size everything at 8x10. Or should it be 8.5x11?

Any help appreciated.

**neeners** · 08-26-2003, 08:56 PM

Paper size would depend on what they want the final output to be. (quantity, binding, etc.)

With 8.5 x 11, you won't pay extra for trimming costs; I recommend a 1/2" border inside that.

If you're having this bound on the left, you'll want a big margin there.

Double-sided is good.

Are you using Quark? Use Style Sheets and possibly Master Pages. (i.e. for page numbering) - so you can make global changes easily.

If they would rather have a booklet, you can always have it folded and stapled down the middle. That gets into laying it out onto Printer's Spreads, which can be helped using Bookletizer Xtension.

**narcisis** · 08-26-2003, 10:20 PM

No, I don't use Quark, never even seen it before

Thanks for all your help!

**connect2nikhil** · 08-29-2003, 01:42 AM

Originally posted by narcisis
Hey fellas,

I've just been contracted todo to catalogs for a client and I had a few questions. You see this will be my first time designing a catalog, I've done ads for print before, just not a catalog.

This won't be going to an official "print house" but rather to a Kinkos. I was thinking I could do every page and just make a PDF. Then my client could just take it to a kinkos and print it out (on both sides too I hope, kinkos does that right?).

Is there anything I should know? I was gonna size everything at 8x10. Or should it be 8.5x11?

Any help appreciated.

Hey! That was cool. I use Adobe InDesign 2.0 to create the catalogues and broucheres. That is a real good software and allows you to do everything you can do using Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.

As far as your case is concerned, you said that you want to save it in PDF format, oh! Hell... that is the format being promoted by Adobe and hence you have a real good option of saving the files in PDF format with hell lotta options.

Clarity is also good.

Go for it. It has default sizes defined for catalogues. Go to http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html and download Adobe InDesign 2.0. Carefull, a huge file although but good.

**connect2nikhil** · 08-29-2003, 02:11 AM

Sorry for posting an appreciation for Adobe Product in Flash Forum.

Any ways, Macromedia is Macromedia and Adobe is Adobe.

**cluelessUK** · 08-29-2003, 05:03 AM

It doesnt really matter what proggie u use, be it quark, indesign, i even us freehand to setup the documents. The important thing to remember when distilling your pdf is to make sure that u embedd fonts as well as allow cmyk output, not rgb, then this should be fine to send to any repro house.

**narcisis** · 08-29-2003, 02:36 PM

Originally posted by cluelessUK
It doesnt really matter what proggie u use, be it quark, indesign, i even us freehand to setup the documents. The important thing to remember when distilling your pdf is to make sure that u embedd fonts as well as allow cmyk output, not rgb, then this should be fine to send to any repro house.

"distilling your pdf" ?

**No-Tec** · 08-29-2003, 06:55 PM

Originally posted by narcisis
"distilling your pdf" ?

its like tricking your computer into thinking its printing the file, instead its saving it as a pdf. one way to do to it [in quark what i use] go to print options and pick "adobe distiller" as the printer. well, i use a seperate plugin. but yeah.

**narcisis** · 08-29-2003, 07:09 PM

Originally posted by No-Tec
its like tricking your computer into thinking its printing the file, instead its saving it as a pdf. one way to do to it [in quark what i use] go to print options and pick "adobe distiller" as the printer. well, i use a seperate plugin. but yeah.

Oh like PS saves directly to PDF - cool.

Do I need Adobe Acrobat Professional to make a pdf book? It would be easier for me to just make all the psd pages into one solid pdf book for print. I'm pretty sure it's going to be about 30 pages.

**No-Tec** · 08-29-2003, 07:13 PM

i just did a 60 page one. i did most of it in PS [cept the text] and brought it into quark. an the printer took it right from quark. i think thats how most printers work. take it right from those type of programs. like indesign and quark etc. no i dont think you need that acrobat program. you can d/l free ones off the internet [pdf plugins].

i dont know if you have but id ask the printer first if a pdf book is ok. i would guess no, but im still new to this too.

**Black_phoenix** · 08-29-2003, 07:23 PM

i would talk to the printer before u send the job and get the spec from them

bleed ?

file type needed ?

pagination ? (the order the pages are in)

what are u designing this in ?

i've been doing this for quite a while and it still scares me doing big jobs, u need to be 100% certain the job prints perfectly

if u have to go and see the printers and walk round and chat with them if u can, u will learn loads

i would say if u are doing lots of print work buy indesign or quark

makes life so much easier

bp

**No-Tec** · 08-29-2003, 07:26 PM

i first got quark at work i was like "Wtf is this, what a lame and simple program" but im telling you it is so easy to get the hang of it and its wonderful. and all printers love it.

**narcisis** · 08-29-2003, 07:56 PM

Originally posted by Black_phoenix
i would talk to the printer before u send the job and get the spec from them

bleed ?

file type needed ?

pagination ? (the order the pages are in)

what are u designing this in ?

i've been doing this for quite a while and it still scares me doing big jobs, u need to be 100% certain the job prints perfectly

if u have to go and see the printers and walk round and chat with them if u can, u will learn loads

i would say if u are doing lots of print work buy indesign or quark

makes life so much easier

bp

Thanks for your input!

Like I said in my first post this won't be going to a print house at all, my client will either print this out on a his home printer, or take it to a kinkos for print.

I'm designing everything in Photoshop, I *really* dislike Illustrator, I realize it's potential.. but dunno, it just puts an ick feeling in my stomach everytime I load it up.

**Black_phoenix** · 08-29-2003, 08:03 PM

if you are doing it all in photoshop and its A4 @ 30 pages its going to be very very big

also one thing i learned a while back, text created in photoshop has fuzzy edges and is never as crisp looking as vector text or text from quark

i only use it if i'm doing effects on the text

bp

**narcisis** · 08-29-2003, 09:10 PM

Originally posted by Black_phoenix
if you are doing it all in photoshop and its A4 @ 30 pages its going to be very very big

also one thing i learned a while back, text created in photoshop has fuzzy edges and is never as crisp looking as vector text or text from quark

i only use it if i'm doing effects on the text

bp

On avg each page(psd) is 55mb. So about 1.5 gigs will be used when it's completed.

Fuzzy edged text? Hm.. didn't think about that. But then again what else could I have created this catalog in and have it retain a smaller file size? I tried illustrator but I didn't want to keep switching back and forth to PS to manipulate images.

Hopefully when I make a pdf book out of it it'll shrink down abit.

I'm trying to find out more on Quark, it seems it's the norm when doing page layouts and stuff.

**connect2nikhil** · 08-30-2003, 12:44 AM

Hey!

I suggest you use InDesign for this works, this is really good and doesnot require any further plugins.

More about InDesign, this is like a cross between Photoshop & Pagemaker. You have so many options, I just can't say and moreover, you can even jump from Photoshop to InDesign any time you want.

This saves your files in PDF format also. Compress your file and lo! your PDF file is ready with real good images, clearer to see.

One more thing, I saw an amazing PDF file. There is a book titled "Java - The Complete Reference". This book has somewhere around 600+ pages. That person or who ever it was converted it into PDF format and can you guess what the file size was?

It had all the pages right from the first page with that graphic to the last page ending with Glossary. This complete thing took just 400 KB and it was made in InDesign.

InDesign offers you this good options for compression.

You have another software called as PDF995, this acts as your printer driver. When you install it, it installs itself as a PDF Printer Driver.

USe it in Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, any software you want.

Just give the print command from "File" and change the driver from your printer driver to PDF995 Printer Driver and Click Ok, this will pop up a window asking, where do you want to save the PDF file and lo! within moments, your file is converted into PDF file.

I think the URL is www.pdf995.com or something like this.

Hope this eases your problem to a real considerable extent.

**narcisis** · 08-30-2003, 04:57 AM

Thanks, I'm looking into InDesign now.

**narcisis** · 08-30-2003, 05:20 AM

I just downloaded the InDesign 2.0 Trial. It won't open PSD's and I don't see an option to import them..

Is there a plugin I need to import PSD's?

**connect2nikhil** · 08-30-2003, 05:23 AM

You can open PSD files in InDesign. It will open by default, because I do it. My coleagues do it. They all open PSD files in InDesign and do it.

**narcisis** · 08-30-2003, 05:26 AM

Originally posted by connect2nikhil
You can open PSD files in InDesign. It will open by default, because I do it. My coleagues do it. They all open PSD files in InDesign and do it.

Nah mine says it can't find the plugin to open it, or Indesign just doesn't support the file. However it did let me import it as a whole image via the "Place" command in the File Menu.. looks a little blurry and pixelated however. Hmm..

EDIT: Looks pretty good, I'm finding everything I need to. Thanks everyone.

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