Best file format for PM to Word? 1

[Eggles]

I have been working on a project involving text and placed TIF images in a PM doc for printing out business-sized cards of our range of products. Each of these cards (10 per page) show a photo of a product, its code number and some text about the product. They have been designed in a PM layout to print on Avery 'clean-edge' business cards.

Now my boss has decided that he wants each 'card' to be available as a separate file that can be dropped into Word, so our interstate branches can print off cards for whichever product they want - i.e. not be confined to whatever particular group of 10 I happen to have placed on each PM page (otherwise I'd PDF it).

What is the best way to do this? I have been thinking about it for the last hour, and the best solution I have come up with so far is to open up each page, zoom in on one card, take a screenshot and open that in Photoshop and save it as a ???? - GIF to preserve the text??? or JPG to preserve the photo??

The images will be placed into Word docs (interstate branches do not have Pagemaker) so that limits the choices of formats in which I can save these individual cards.

There may be an alternative to taking screen shots, but at the moment can't think of anything else that will work or else involve quite a bit of reworking of the file (I have 140 'cards').

Any suggestions?

 

[carlow]

Hi,

What I would do is create a new file with the document setup 'Avery 'clean-edge' business cards', and create as much pages as you need for your products. Open the original file, select one product card, copy it and paste it in the second file. After doing that for each card I would make a pdf. With the search engine in acrobat they can search for the product card and print that particular card. Or you can make a list of the products and hyperlink them in the pdf file.

hope this helps
grillhouse

 

[viol8ion]

I would second Grillhouse's idea of using PDF. Everyone can use that, and you preserve the layout. Word is NOT a graphical layout app... and you would have one headache after another trying to copy the cards to Word... and they would be able to mistakenly 'edit' or corrupt those files whereas with PDFs you know the info & layout will remain intact. When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[Eggles]

My first thought was to use PDF direct from PM, after laying out the cards in a page setup equal to the size of the card. This would give them a PDF for each card. But how to print them?

The problem is, they will probably want to print them on to the same pre-made Avery cards we used (

http://www.avery.com/products/add_t...ype.jsp?itemcat_code=2107&catalog_code=WEB01)

(or something similar) so they only way they could print something the right size would be to 'lay it out' in a Word document set up to match a pre-existing Avery format. Have I explained this well enough to see the problem?

I agree however, that laying each card out on its own page of 2" x 3.5" in PM, then creating a PDF of each card, would be the ideal solution, but I am dealing with not very computer literate people here, and they wouldn't have a clue how to go about printing the PDFs to match the card template.

 

[Eggles]

I forgot to mention, you can't put PDFs into Word.

And I didn't mean to imply creating a Word doc for them, just some sort of graphic which they could place into a Word table/template in order to print the damn things..

 

[Eggles]

Sorry - I didn't mean to have to make yet another post, but I have just re-read Grillhouse's suggestion and that is basically what I already have. Except the PM file is not yet a PDF. But it does consist of 14 pages each displaying 10 cards. They may not want to print the same 10 cards I have put on the one page, so PDF'ing a PM page doesn't allow them to pick and choose which cards they want to print.

 

[carlow]

Hi the grill again,

I still stand by my first option, but if you really want to use Word there maybe a work around.

Do the things I said in my first option, make a pdf but make it from each separate page. So you will have 140 pdf's. open each pdf in Photoshop and save it in the best possible format. You will have to do some trial and error to see what works best in Word. Save your cards in this format, and now they can insert these cards in their Word document.
Why the pdf workaround? Because the quality will be better than taking a snapshot of your screen.

hope this helps
grillhouse

 

[viol8ion]

If your PM document is layed out according to the template for the cards you will be fine, the PDF will print to the cards and registration will be correct.

I NEVER use Word for my cards, but set up the PM doc guideline and margins according to the Avery cards... Word is NOT a graphics layout app and anything designed on it will be subject to Word's formatting, changing your layout.

To convert your cards to Word would require a complete from the gorund up designin of them in Word.

or.. you can convert each card to a PDF, then open that PDF in Photoshop and convert to TIF, and place the TIFs in Word... almost as painful as designing from the ground up in Word.

It is a shame that Microsloth has reduced the computing world to a bunch of brainless users that can only use Microsloth's products as an end-all for all purposes, whether they were designed for it or not... When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[Eggles]

Hi 'the grill again'

OK - I am beginning to see there is no way round this but to set up a new PM doc with page size 2" x 3.5", and make a separate page for each card which can then each be converted to PDF. Open in Photoshop and see which file format looks best.

Heavens - I am supposed to have this done by lunchtime tomorrow (its late Thurday night where I am). I think that really will be pushing it.

 

[Eggles]

I just conducted a little test at home to see how this would go. I have none of the graphics I need to use, but I found something I could make the right size and resolution so I used that. I set up a PM doc with a page size of 2" x 3.5", placed the graphics, typed in a little text (I don't even have the right font at home - I just used a similar sans serif).

So I was able to simulate one card, which I then converted to PDF, fired up Photoshop, opened the PDF and used the save for web function to create a GIF and a JPG of the PDF. I used max quality on the JPG , so it ended up 69KB, but that's OK. I wasn't sure of all the right choices to make when I saved the GIF (adaptive? perceptual?) but I used 64 colours and the file size came in at 20kb. I then inserted both into a Word table and printed (on my B&W non-PS laser) and guess what? they BOTH look OK.

So this looks to be the way to go. I wonder what is the fastest way of getting stuff from one PM doc to another - can I just copy and paste?

 

[viol8ion]

Eggles...

You can copy/paste from one PM doc to another with no problem.. just never copy/paste from any other app into PM or you will run into problems.

I would not recommend GIF for anything being printed, it is generally a web only format. I high quality JPG will be okay, but realize that it will lose quality every time you open it and save it. TIF is lossless, and best bet for graphics that will be printed. When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com