Printing High Quality Cards

How to Get the Most Out of Print Shop

Hi,

I like your website.

I am trying to get set up to design a series of original greeting cards using PrintShop Version 20 which you recommend.

I may want to get them printed out in quantity to sell but initially I just want to print smaller amounts.

Therefore I was trying to set it up so I could print half fold cards close to 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" so I could print the cards 2up on an 8-1/2 x 11 at a copy shop with minimal cutting and waste. I guess I would need it printed to the edge for this.

However, with either the greeting card format or the blank page on PrintShop it seems to lock me in to a 1/2" margin (dotted line on the layout page). What's the best way to achieve this size card?

Also, print shop says to save your work as a PDF to take to a printer. I did that and the text wouldn't print clearly. The PDF didn't register the text clearly.

Does this mean I have to find a printer that has PrintShop on file to open my work in the same software?

I want to make sure I can do what I need to with this software after all my design work.

I have an older version of Photoshop also but I'm not sure how sharp their text would be for printing cards.

PrintShop claims their text is very sharp but there seem to be limitations.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You,

Jack

Thank you. I'm glad you like our site.

I've done a couple of tutorials on laying out greeting cards on a blank PrintShop page. Here's one that you might find helpful.

Don't blame PrintShop for the wide margins or the poor print quality; those are caused by your printer and file resolution respectively.

Minimizing Printer Margins

Your printer, not software, is what controls the margins. My old HP OfficeJet Pro K550 did not allow printing to the edge.

However, I find the 1/8-inch margins acceptable for my work.

You can look in your printer's manual or just play with the printer options. Here's how.

Open a project in PrintShop and choose Print. When the Print box comes up, click on the Setup bar. This opens the Print Setup box.

Your printer should show up in the "Name" drop down list as the selected printer. You can choose another printer or mode by clicking on the drop down list.

Clicking on the Properties bar will bring up an options box for the selected printer or mode. If you click on the various tabs, you should find margin options.

If you're lucky, you may have a printer which is capable of printing to the edge. If not, you should find something such as "Minimize Margins" or "Emulate Laser Margins".

Saving a PrintShop Project as a PDF File

Fonts are created as vector images. What you type is the result of a precise mathematical equation.

What's cool about vector images is that you can enlarge them to the max without any loss of quality. Read more about vector vs. raster images here.

I suspect the quality loss you're seeing is due to the resolution of the PDF (Portable Document Format) files you are creating.

Strangely the basic option list for saving a PrintShop project as a PDF file only contains 75 and 150 dpi. The minimum acceptable dpi for a printed project is 300.

Click on File>Options>General Options and check the box that says "Optimal Printing Resolution". This will add 300 and 600 dpi to the PDF resolution drop down list. That should do the trick.

You might also be interested in PrimoPDF, a free downloadable PDF writer. It gives you more options including a Prepress mode designed to produce the file quality required for commercial printing.

Once it is installed on your computer, rather than use the File>Save as PDF command, choose File>Print. Then select Primo PDF from the printer/mode drop down list and click Print.

The Primo PDF options box will come up allowing you to select the quality you want, as well as to set security options. Security options protect your original artwork from being plagiarized.