[thelist] microsoft word for PRINT, not WEB?

Max Wyss max at prodok.com
Mon May 20 04:52:01 CDT 2002


Francis,

Word is a _wordprocessor_ (and actually, not a bad one at all).
However, that is also where the limit lies. Word is NOT layout
software ... and definitely not suitable for press applications.

Besides looking for something more robust ... Framemaker, InDesign,
Quark Xpress coming to my mind ... what can you do to get the least
bad results?

One thing you can do is letting word do as little to the images it
can. This means that you definitely should go for a PostScript/PDF
workflow. This also means that you should provide your images in the
EPS format. This should prevent Word from messing around with it, as
the "real" image data will be inserted when you create the PostScript
file (for further processing in Distiller). This should kind of take
care of the images.

For the printer driver, the standard suggestion is to use the newest
version of the AdobePS printer driver for your platform, AND the
Distiller PPD. Avoid the Microsoft Postscript printer driver, as it
is less advanced ... the AdobePS can be downloaded for free from the
Adobe website.

Also, make sure that you have always that printer driver/PPD combo
selected as active printer driver when you work on your document.
Word has a "feature" that it does take the font run length
information and other information from the printer driver, and does
the line breaking based on that ... as a consequence, it "loves" to
reflow your text...

One last thing with the Distiller settings: "Print" is for office
printer quality. For press print quality, you better use the "Press"
settings ... or even better, you ask your service bureau for their
Distiller Parameters (which then also would take care of the more
specifc prepress settings).

Hope, this can help.


Max Wyss
PRODOK Engineering
Low Paper workflows, Smart documents, PDF forms
CH-8906 Bonstetten, Switzerland

Fax:  +41 1 700 20 37
e-mail:  mailto:max at prodok.com
http://www.prodok.com



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______________________





>hello, i hope this is not OT. can i use microsoft word
>for printing quality work? lets say i have an image
>that is at a very high resolution (or can be) and i
>need to print out as if it were a professional
>printing job. when i use an ordinary word document,
>and print it out, the quality is not really that good.
>the ink for instance is a little blotched. what am i
>doing wrong, or missing, or can i do better?
>
>Word/M$ products in general are terrible for images.  Get a nice
>graphic, put it in Word and the quality goes.  You also (or at least I
>can't!) copy and paste out of Word into something like Fireworks, which
>is annoying.  I'd stay well away from that solution - Word just cannot
>handle it.  How about PDF'ing the image and using the "Print" quality
>setting in Distiller?
>



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