ARTWORK GUIDELINES 

Pacer Label uses and recommends Macintosh files for submitting artwork. Windows files are acceptable as long as the following software programs created them:

• Adobe Illustrator (.AI .EPS)
• Adobe Photoshop (.PSD .TIF .EPS .JPG)
• Adobe InDesign (.INDD)

GENERAL DOCUMENT SETUP

Artwork is considered “ready” when it can be used for prepress and printing without the need for modifications that might incur extra charges or cause delays. Too often, when the order reaches the point of production is it discovered that the artwork is not of a sufficient quality or type required to produce the products. 

These setup instructions will help speed up the production of your project and give your printed piece the best results.

MICROSOFT OFFICE OR WEB GRAPHICS WILL NOT WORK.

• We always prefer vector art when possible! Only professional software packages may be used to produce artwork that will print reliably. Although programs like Microsoft Word and Publisher are useful tools, they are not capable of producing art files of a quality necessary for professional printing purposes.
• Vector art can be created with programs like Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer or Corel Draw.
• If you do not have any of the recommended software programs listed above, you can create a high resolution Acrobat (PDF) file by printing to a PDF file. When creating a PDF file, select “Press Quality” (if available) in the print options dialog.

VECTOR ARTWORK FILES

• Must be saved in the Postscript Format and contain no empty or stray points or unassigned layers, patterns or colors.
• All type that has been set must be converted to outlines (curves). If future changes to the text will be necessary, the original font file(s) must be supplied with the art file.
• All design elements in the file must be a minimum of .25 or .5 points. Do not specify “Hairline” for rules (lines) if your software program gives you that option. Failure to do so may compromise the final printing quality.

RASTER ARTWORK FILES

• All Raster elements (photographs, scans or other art produced by Photoshop) must be sized to at least 100% of the final printing size.
• All Raster images must be at least 300 dots per inch at the final printing size.
• All raster elements in grayscale format unless the artwork is in “Line Art” mode (common for logos and other high contrast art), then the minimum resolution should be 600 dots per inch.

COLOR PROFILES

Pacer Label’s presses are set up for the SWOP Coated ICC Profile. Please use this profile when setting up your documents.

Adobe Creative Cloud users: You can synchronize your color profiles across all of the Creative Cloud applications in Adobe Bridge. Select “Color Settings” from the Edit menu and Select “North America Prepress 2” as your default color setting. This will apply the following settings across all of your installed Creative Cloud applications

• RGB: Adobe RGB (1998)
• CMYK: U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2

GEEK TECH TALK – WHY YOU SHOULD USE THE CMYK COLORSPACE 

(Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black). are industry standard printing colors. CMYK colors are different from RGB (Red, Green, Blue) which are used to display colors on your monitor or other digital device. 

The number of colors that can be faithfully printed in the CMYK colorspace is less than what can be displayed on a monitor using the RGB colorspace. Any colors that fall outside of the CMYK color space will be reduced to the closest reproducible color, which can result in unexpected and unwanted color shifts to your artwork.