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CopyDoodles Lunch & Learn: “Getting The Best Print Quality Every Time”

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Lunch & Learn Transcript:

Hi, everyone. This is Lauren, your CopyDoodles Success Coach. I’m just starting a few minutes after Noon today, so that we can wait for everybody to get on the call. Some people come in a little bit late. So, today’s webinar is about How To Get The Best Print Quality On Every Single Piece You Create. This webinar won’t take too long. It actually is just some really quick notes about what you want to make sure you want to do when you’re printing all of your pieces, whether you’re printing them out at home, or you’re sending them to a printer.

And, then in two weeks our next topic will be Creating Better Than Ever CopyDoodle Pieces in GIMP. So, I use GIMP a lot and I tell you guys to use GIMP as a substitute for Photoshop, or if you don’t have any image editing programs like that. I need two weeks to prepare because it should be pretty in-depth and since I use Photoshop I’ll kind of need to figure out how to use GIMP so I can show you guys the best of everything.

And, I’m also actually going to be changing the Lunch and Learns so that they happen
bi-weekly now, just because I’ve been so busy with all of the great stuff we’ve been working on with CopyDoodles, I want to make sure that I have enough time to do both. So, we might be coming back to weekly in the future, but from now on they will be
bi-weekly and you’ll get notices then before each webinar, so you won’t forget, just like you do now.

Also this is super-cool, we just got some new comics in the CopyDoodles Access Club. Right now they’re all black and white, but we have now have color. And, they’re not in there right now, so don’t go and search right now. We are loading them right after today’s webinar. I just have to get them ready and them get them up there. It will be about 20+ of the color CopyComics, so I’m not sure if all twenty will be put in today, but we’re going to get in as many in as we can, as possible, because they’re really fun and they look really cool, and I love just having color. I mean you can also print these in black and white too. So, this will be fun for you guys to play around with on your online and offline marketing.

Also, if you guys weren’t here on last week’s webinar I am giving away some free CopyDoodles swag to anybody who reviews CopyDoodles on their site. So, if you guys are interested just feel free to let me know by typing in the Questions Box, or find me on Live Chat, or shoot me an email. We’re just looking for people to write a little review about CopyDoodles and things like that.

Our Member-only Lunch and Learn Deal of the Week, if you weren’t here last week, if you like our Facebook pages we’re giving away some gift certificates to Amazon, once we hit a 1,000 people, so you could have the opportunity to win some pretty cool gift certificates. If you like both pages, who knows, if Random.org picks you twice, then you’ll win a bunch of Amazon.com gift cards. So, make sure that you like our pages, because I also post a lot of really cool updates there that we don’t really email about or anything like that. Make sure to check those out.

And then moving on, today’s webinar is How To Get The Best Print Quality On Every Single Piece You Create. So, again, the replay will be right after this webinar, so make sure to check it out on www.CopyDoodles.com/blog if you have any other questions.

So, the Big 3 for today that we’re going to be talking about are common scary mistakes that speedy marketers make. So, these are things that I actually see on people when they send their documents to me all the time. So, when you guys are sending me stuff, sometimes I see mistakes that you’re making with your CopyDoodles when you’re placing them on your documents, and you’re probably sending these out to your lists like this, so you want to make sure that you’re not doing things like this when you’re sending them to your printer, or you’re sending them out, or even just placing them on websites, and things like that.

Also we’re going to be talking about CopyFont mistakes that can ruin your whole sales letter. This has also happened to other marketers and business owners. If they don’t know what to do before they send over their piece to their printer, or their printer is not checking and their printer doesn’t have the CopyFonts. So, this is definitely really important.

And, then also just a few tips for sending files to a professional printer, in case anybody has any questions, or anything like that.

So, the biggest common mistakes, and I see this all the time, and it seems so simple to fix, and I’m sure you guys — maybe you don’t do this, but I get people all the time sending me images and they’re resized incorrectly. So, it seems like a basic one, but I would probably say that 25% of the things that I receive, or maybe less, I might be exaggerating, are resized incorrectly. And, I used this beer mug, because it seriously makes me feel tipsy when I see stuff like this, just because it’s so easy to resize properly, so you guys just make sure that you’re not stretching your CopyDoodles or stretching your CopyComics when they shouldn’t be stretched, you should always be resizing by clicking on the corner of a box.

So, let me just exit out and open up Word so I can kind of show you what I mean. So, if I have Word open and I’m opening up a CopyDoodle and placing one of our brand new comics in here. So, let me just pick one of our new comics… So, if I have this on my document and I’m ready to resize it, a lot of people will just resize here, they’ll resize like that and hope that it’s OK, but that’s not OK, because the image gets stretched and it doesn’t look correct, and when you print it out, if you print it out in a really good resolution you’ll be able to tell that it’s not correct. So, make sure that when you’re resizing that you’re always resizing from the corners here, that way your image will always be even, you know? One side of this image isn’t getting swished and manipulated, and things like that. So, always resize from the corners.

And, if you’re using Photoshop, or another image editor, maybe you’re using GIMP, if you resize from the corners you’ll still be able to move the image and you can still cause that problem. So, make sure that you press SHIFT when you are clicking. If you press SHIFT at the same time you click and resize the image it will resize perfectly, it will resize evenly and you won’t have any issues at all. So, make sure that you’re doing that if you’re using any type of image editors or anything like that.

So, back to the slideshow. Other common mistakes are not setting up your print quality settings when you’re printing to your own home computer, or even if you’re — I guess if you’re sending this to your printer it won’t be a problem, but if you’re printing to your home computer sometimes people don’t think about their print settings, they think that their printer is already set up because it looks good, it looks OK, but if you have low quality print settings — I’m not sure if you guys can exactly tell, but your CopyDoodles will look fuzzy and all of your images and things will look fuzzy. So, it doesn’t really look like you wrote on your pieces of paper with a Sharpie. And, the thing with CopyDoodles is you want to make sure that when you are using CopyDoodles that it looks like it’s hand done. So, anything used to tweak that is going to tell people when they receive your envelope in the mail, or when they see something, either that it’s not quality or that you didn’t actually do it, it’s not actually hand-written, you didn’t take the time to do it. It won’t feel as personalized. So, make sure that you’re paying attention to this kind of stuff.

So, if you’re using Word, or any other program there’s always print settings that you can set up. In Word all you all have to do is go to ‘File’ and then choose ‘Print’, and then if you go to ‘Printer Properties’, right here, it should be underneath your printer that you select. A box will come up and it will let you choose all of your printer settings. So, right now my print quality is just on normal, because I just print regular documents, or things like that, and I don’t need my documents to look their best, because I’m not sending them out to anybody, I’m using them for myself. So, make sure that your print quality is set as best. Make sure that your paper size is correct, you even choose the type of paper that you’re using so that your printer knows, you can choose on the left-hand side here. Also head over to ‘Features’ and head over to ‘Advanced’ because you can also choose to enable your maximum DPI setting, that means that it will print at the highest resolution, DPI, so you’ll definitely want to check that, so that your print-outs come out their best.

And then under ‘Features’ you can also just make sure that the resolution is good, make sure that you have a high resolution. I’m at 600, so that’s pretty good. And then you can also show a preview before printing too, if you’re worried that anything will get cut off when you print it, or things like that. So, make sure that you’re doing all of these things and testing them before you print them out.

Also, some common mistakes — I’ve noticed that there are sometimes some issues when people are printing to a PDF. So, if you’re in Word and you’re selecting to print to a PDF and then you’re printing, sometimes PNG files just don’t look the same quality as JPEG. I’m not exactly sure why this happens. I’ve talked to Mike and he’s talked to a bunch of people. We’re not sure why PNG files just — sometimes they just won’t look as clear. Sometimes you’ll see like a line around them or something like that. So, if you’ve ever had this happen you might know what I’m talking about. So, in order to keep this from happening just stick to JPEG or stick to the vector images, which I’ll show you in a little bit how to access on the CopyDoodles Access Club, if you’re not sure.

Vector images are the best resolution images we have. I use them all the time for everything I print because I want my stuff to look its best. It’s just a huge image. So, if you’re putting a CopyDoodle on a document and you have to stretch it larger to make it bigger, that image is actually losing a little bit of resolution, so it’s becoming a little fuzzy. Even if you can’t really tell with your naked eye, when you print it out you’ll be able to tell the difference between a printed vector, which is a huge file that you scale down, and a JPEG or a PNG that just isn’t as good of a resolution. So, make sure that you’re thinking about these things when you’re creating your documents. And stick to JPEGs as often as possible.

So, the CopyFont mistake that can ruin your entire sales letter is if you are using our CopyFonts and maybe you’re doing an entire sales letter in a handwritten font and that’s the whole point of the sales letter, your printer receives it and they look at it to make sure that things are lined up correctly, but they’re not reading your whole document, so they might not even know that it’s supposed to be in a handwritten font.

And, maybe it’s a new printer, or maybe you’ve been using the printer for a while and you’re not thinking, you send it over, not everybody’s computers have the same font, so if they don’t have any of our CopyFonts installed on their computer, then they’re not even going to see the handwritten fonts on their documents. They’re not going to know that anything is wrong. The fonts will get substituted out. Nobody will know. And your stuff will get printed and you’ll get 500 documents and they’ll all be in Arial font instead of handwritten font. If that’s your whole point, to write in handwritten font, then your whole thing is ruined.

So, make sure that before you send any documents over to your printer that you are saving your files as a PDF instead of saving it as a Word document and you always send it over to your printer as a PDF. So, if you go to ‘File’ and you choose ‘Save As’ you can click on the dropdown in Word and you can just choose PDF and that will automatically flatten the document, the fonts will get embedded, and you won’t have to worry about sending it over to your printer.

And just make sure that you’re also emailing your printer and you just let him know, “Hey, I’m using a handwritten font, can you just make sure that it shows up?” It never hurts to check. Most printers — I just sent some stuff over to my printer and they knew right away that one of my fonts wasn’t embedded and they were able to tell me, “Hey, can you send that back to me?” Most good printers will, but depending on who you’re using they might not realize it, so make sure that you’re paying attention to that when you are sending your files over.

Also some tips for sending files to your printer, use vector versions of CopyDoodles, like I just said. So, make sure that you’re using vector versions, especially if you’re doing something large, like if you’re doing a banner or something like that the regular CopyDoodles, the PNG files won’t be able to stretch to a 10’ x 10’ banner or even a
3’ x 5’ banner. Make sure that you’re using vector versions. And, if you can’t find a vector version and you’re creating something really large, just shoot us an email because we’re always open to creating a vector version for you if you are really creating a large document and you’re worried about the scalable of any of our things.

If you’re using GIMP flatten the file that can be opened by your printer, so flatten your file so that it’s a PDF, or a JPEG, or a TIFF. So, first I’m just going to show you the first two bullets on this slide. I’m going to show you how to find the vector versions of our CopyDoodles. So, I’m going to open up my Internet Explorer. Not all of our CopyDoodles have vector versions, so if you’re creating a CopyDoodle for — let’s say you’re creating one in one of the CopyGenerators, you’re not going to be able to create a vector from that because we have — there’s a lot of steps in creating vector documents, in order for them to scale up or down. So, you won’t be able to do any of the generators, which is why I say if you have any problems, or you need a specific doodle, we’re always happy to create them, because we have to create them on our end, unless you know how to create your own vector files.

So, basically what you do is you’ll just search through the CopyDoodles. All the CopyDoodles in our collection, most of them are loaded up as vector versions I believe, if not all of them. So, basically vector files always download in red. So, you’ll just choose Vector.EPS [assumed spelling] or EMF you can choose whatever one. I always use the EPS file, so if you’re not sure just stick to that one. And then download the CopyDoodle. Now, if you don’t want the CopyDoodle to be in red, that’s OK, just pull the image into GIMP and drop another color inside of it.

And, I’ll be showing you guys how to do all of this stuff next week. Also if you’re using GIMP, I already have GIMP open, so say I pulled in this CopyComic and I wanted my tag line to actually be in a CopyDoodle. So, I pulled the comic in without any taglines on the bottom at all, and I use this text button and a I created a text box and typed, “In a CopyDoodles font your business can soar.” Now, I can’t just save this as is, because if I save it and then send it over to my printer the font won’t work. So, what I’m going to do is I’m going to choose ‘Save As,’ so I’m just going to change the name on here. I’m just going to choose whatever name I want. I’m going to save it to my Desktop, and then I’m going to select my file type. Now, it really depends on your printer what they’re looking for, but a JPEG should be fine to send over to your printer because it’s a pretty good file for them to work with. So, I’m just going to scroll down until I see JPEG image and I’m going to choose that.

When I click ‘Save’ GIMP will already know that, one, it can’t use a transparent image, so there’s some transparency on this image, and it needs to flatten the image, it needs to flatten the text into the background so that you’ll be able to use the whole file and when you send it to someone the text won’t change. So, if I choose ‘Export’ another box will come up, just asking me about quality of my .JPG. So, make sure that your quality if you are sending this to your printer is always as best as it can get.

Now it’s going to be a huge file, but it’s better to have a really good quality high-sized file that it takes ten minutes to send over to your printer, than to worry about the quality of your images when they print out and not know what they’re going to come out looking like.

So, then once you save it, it will just save as that document and your images will be merged. Another thing you can do is if you want to merge any of the fonts into the document on your own is basically you’ll come over here to your different layers that you have and as you can see this is my text layer, because it says, “Your business can soar…” and it shows a little text box, and then this is my image, my background. So, you’re just going to right-click on this and you’re just going to choose ‘Merge Down,’ and that will merge the text into the background so that I cannot move the text any longer. I can’t move any of that, I can only move — the whole image is its own image. And, then I know that this is flattened and when I send it to my printer I won’t have any problems at all.

Then don’t forget the bleed on any of your pages. Make sure that when you talk to your printer you ask them if they are going to be setting this up, or if you’re going to be setting up a bleed on your images, if you’re sending a postcard or anything like that. Most printers will want you have 1/8” bleed, which means that if your pages is 8.5” x 11” page then your page will actually be 8.75” x 11.25”, so that means there’s a little border, a tiny, little 1/8” border around all of your pages. So, if you have a postcard that’s a red background you want to make sure that red background is not only on your 3”x 5” postcard or whatever, but it actually goes outward and bleeds into the 1/8” excess of your file, so that your printer, when he prints it, that when the postcard gets cut that there won’t be any extra white space that you don’t know about, when you get your print-outs you won’t have a line on the side of your postcard. It really depends on however they’re cutting it and things like that. But, just be safe and make sure that you have a bleed and all of your colors bleed out a little bit. Some printers don’t want this, so just make sure you ask them.

Also some other tips, send the raw file with your CopyDoodles attached. If you’re not sure, if you’re confused, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, then send your files and attach all of your CopyDoodles, or do a printout of it on your computer, scan it in, and send it over to your printer and say, “This is what it’s supposed to look like.” So, that means send your end design file, send your Photoshop file, your Publisher, your Word document, whatever you’re using — if you’re using Word — send over the file and if they don’t have your fonts and you just don’t understand, ask them to install CopyFont, though they shouldn’t be using it for anybody else, since they don’t have a CopyDoodles membership, but for you they can make sure that that all of your stuff comes in OK.

And then if you’re using any Adobe programs or GIMP, like I just showed you, make sure to just flatten the files and the fonts before you send them over. And, saving them as a JPEG or a PDF without any layers, if you’re using Adobe, will be completely fine. You won’t have any issues at all. So, it’s really simple. There’s really not too many steps. I think that it can seem a little daunting when you’re using these CopyDoodles and these fonts and you’re worried that images aren’t going to show up, but it’s really not that hard. Especially if you talk to your printer, they can explain to you exactly what you need and things like that.

Just some resources… Mike uses a program called Zan Image Printer. I guess it’s a paid program, I’m not sure exactly how much it costs, but he was telling me about this. So, basically when you choose, say you’re printing at your home printer, or something like that, when you choose — open up Word you can actually print to an image file, so you can print to a PDF, or a JPEG, or any type of image file. And, I believe it has a better resolution, it will look better and it will flatten everything, you won’t have any issues.

And then our printer, Mikel Mailings is listed there, so in case you guys had any questions, that’s who we used. We print small things from the office, but if we’re printing large quantities we use him.

And then if anybody has any questions feel free to ask me any questions right now.

Somebody just asked me what do I mean by ‘flattening the file’. That’s just exactly what I showed you in GIMP. So, this file had two different layers and I flattened it by either just saving as a JPEG it will automatically flatten it, or I showed you over here in the layer, I flattened the image. And, then if you’re using Microsoft Word, just by saving as a PDF, that will flatten your image so that your fonts will be basically combined into the document. When you do things in Word and things like this there’s actually — every time you type something there’s another layer that you put on the document. So, this image is a layer, a font, if I were to type any text in here, that’s another layer, so you basically just want all of the layers to be one layer so that nothing can get changed, because when it’s one layer the text is then combined into the background. It’s basically I guess engrained into everything, that’s the best way I can explain it, so that nothing can move, nothing can change around when you send it over — sizes, placements, things can’t change when you send it to someone else, if they have different settings on their computer.