Printing Your Trip Strategy Guide™
Version 1 - March 2005
Computers can be great, but...
When it comes to reading documents, nothing beats paper in your hands. When printing your Trip Strategy Guide™,much of the work necessary to print high quality maps and images has already been done for you. When we generatethe documents for web and print publication we automatically adjust the color mode of the maps and image withineach guide to optimize the contents for optimum print quality. That being said, anyone who has ever tried to print ahigh resolution document has had experience with less than satisfactory results. Printing mistakes can be frustrating,time consuming, and costly. In order to prevent this, we have assembled this guide to ensure you have theinformation needed to maximize your productivity and results while minimizing frustration and costs. Users may findthis guide helpful as well in increasing the quality of all color documents you might print from your home computer.
When optimizing documents for print output, it is important to understand color and how itis rendered both on the screen and consequently as it outputs to the printer. Computersdisplay graphics and images in RGB (Red-Green-Blue) color mode which produces the vividimages you see on your screen. The reason for this is because all forms of CRT Monitors,Televisions, and LCD’s use light to create the images you see on the screen. Obviously thereis so such thing as actual black light so the any black colors you might see on your screenrepresent an absence of these three colors. With RGB color, computers can display over 16million colors which allow nearly limitless options in displaying the colors you see on yourscreen. An example of how these colors are mixed can be seen to your right.
Paper and printed materials, on the other hand, display themselves through light absorption rather than light creation. As such, an image produced in RGB color mode and printed without any modification of the color values by the computer or printing software will produce documents which are unattractive and much different from what you see on your screen. This happens because the color values assigned to each pixel in a web graphic are designed for light projection, not light absorption.
Enter CYMK (Cyan-Yellow-Magenta-Key) color; key meaning black. If you have ever heard the term four-color printing, this is what it refers to. In fact all photo printers on the market today use CMYK ink cartridges to print documents and photos. A combination of these colors is used to control the light absorption on each page and thus render the colors you see. When we produce our Trip Strategy Guides on the computer, the images we see are in RGB color mode. In order to prepare them for printing by our printing vendors and by our users who download our product, we convert all of the images and graphics to CMYK color values to ensure that the print output is predictable and consistent. You will notice, however a significant difference in the color saturation between the RGB image above and the CMYK image to your left.
Modern printers are very advanced today in their ability to convert all types of color values into printable content. The downside of this is all of these printers require some modification of their default settings to ensure that the type of paper used is appropriately matched to the mixture and quantity of ink placed on the page. Most of us have a ream or two of bargain basement printer paper in our desk or cabinet. We have a ton of the stuff ourselves as it is great for printing copies of receipts, letters, proofing text and the like. When it comes to printing images or graphics with any degree of detail, however, you should invest in a 100-pack or so of your favorite printer manufacter’s heavy-weight, bright white premium paper.
A trip to the local office supply or computer retailer to pick up specialty inkjet paper can be a bit overwhelming. Mostmajor retailers have dozens if not scores of different types and qualities of papers on their shelves. A good rule ofthumb when choosing a premium printing paper is to choose one with a weight of over 23lb and with a brightnessrating of over 85. For example, when we proof our Trip Strategy Guides™ we print the documents with excellentresults on HP Bright White inkjet paper which has a weight of 24 and a brightness well in excess of 90. While we don’tadvocate any particular brand of printer or paper, we have found that many manufacturers’ name-brand papers arespecially formulated to absorb their own inks. Consequently, in most cases it’s a safe bet to go with your printermanufacturers’ brand of paper.
Printer Settings
The first step in adjusting the property settings of your printer for high-resolution output is to ensure that you have the latest printer driver for your particular printer. The CD included in the packaging is often out-of-date before you ever open the box. Driver updates help to fix known issues and bugs associated with the printer and in many cases also contain enhancements that improve the process of laying ink on the page. Drivers can be found at your printer manufacturer’s web site.
Assuming you already have Adobe Reader open already you can click on the File>Print Setup menu to display your current printer properties. Here you can adjust the properties for the current document, however the settings will have to be adjusted again each time you open a new document. If you click on the “Properties” button, a dialog box pops up with several tabs containing various options to adjust the settings for the current project. When you open the properties inspector you will notice that all of the settings are adjusted to the default properties. In order to print graphics with any degree of detail, we will need to adjust these. Most important are the Print Quality and Paper Type settings or their equivalent names depending on your brand of printer. These two settings are the primary controls for the amount of ink that is placed on the page. First, adjust your Quality Settings to “Best” or the equivalent. This ensures that the ink is laid on the paper without any gaps in coverage. Next it’s time to adjust your paper settings. If you are not using your manufacturer’s brand of paper, you may have to do some experimenting with the paper settings. As you will see, most manufacturers have presets for their own specialty papers. These settings are optimized for the particular type of paper.
As you can see to the right, in this case we haveselected a quality of “Best” with a paper type of “hpbright white paper.” We have found, in general, thatany paper with a weight of over 23 and a brightnessof over 85 performs well at this setting. Printing atest page using a page with a mixture of text andgraphics will ensure, however that the settings areright for the type of paper that you are using. CanonPrinters use a “Print Advisor” feature that containssome standardized settings for printing highresolution documents. Other tabs in the propertiesinspector adjust allow you to adjust the color settingsfor your document and adjust the manner in whichthe pages are printed(more on this in a moment).
One other setting to take note of involves the quantity of ink that is placed on the page. This feature is not available with all manufacturers of printers, but when it is available, it can be a useful setting if you use papers not branded by your printer manufacturer. If these settings are new to you, feel free to play around and test the output of the different settings. While this certainly may use some expensive ink and paper in the process, once you understand how the adjustment of a particular setting affects the output of the page, all of your future print jobs will benefit as a result.
Page Options
Now that the settings for your the quantity and quality of ink in addition to the type of paper usedare configured, it’s time to specify the manner inwhich the pages themselves are printed. Whenusing a heavyweight paper, an added advantage isthat you can take advantage of double-sidedprinting. On standard paper, this is not a realisticoption as the lower weight allows the colors to bleedthrough; consequently ruining both sides of thepage.
Some older printers do not have an option fordouble sided printing. That’s not a problem becauseAdobe Reader includes features that allow you toperform the same function if it is not available to youthrough your printer settings. When you select the“Print” option the Adobe the dialog box appearswhich allows you to specify which pages your wishto print. You can easily accomplish double sidedprinting by selecting “Odd Pages Only” in the subsetbox (see left).
Once you successfully print the odd pages and have allowed sufficient time for the ink to dry, you can then carefullyload the printed pages back into the printer with the un printed side facing the direction of the ink. Now print the even pages to achieve a double-sided print. Depending on the manner in which your printer feeds the paper through you will have to ensure the the proper end is facing the feeder. If you make a mistake in this, you will end up with a upside down mess as a result. We have all made this mistake, but it’s best not to do so if you can avoid it. If your printer manufacturer has their own settings for double-sided printing, it’s best to use them. Most have their own wizards which walk you through the steps of making sure the paper is facing the proper direction to avoid costly mistakes.
Another option as you will see in the above illustration is the “Page Scaling” feature. Unless you know for sure that your printer will print all of the way to the edge of the paper, it’s best to use the “fit to page” option. When you see the professionally printed version of a Trip Strategy Guide™, you will noticed that they are printed all of the way to the edge. In actuality, they are first printed and then the edges are sawed off to ensure the graphics align properly with the edge. In our own office, between the two inkjet printers we use most frequently, only the our Canon I550 will actually print all of the way to the edge while the HP does not. In the Canon preferences dialog, click on the “Page Setup” tab and select the “Borderless Printing” check box to configure this option. This only is recommended, however only with select types of paper.
Summary
This help document provides the basics on how to configure your printer for quality printing of your Trip StrategyGuide™. While we certainly can’t guarantee the final results of your print job, we hope that the above provides youwith a method to ensure the best possible output from your printer of choice. Many factors such as your computers operating system, brand of printer, and age have to be taken into consideration. Those running Apple computers or using another operating system such as Linux will find that while the dialog boxes and buttons are different, the fundamentals apply. If you find that your computer or printer are incapable of producing a satisfactory result, you can always order a professionally printed and bound version of your particular Trip Strategy Guide™. We charge our printing cost plus an additional 5% to cover accounting and production related expenses. While we feel the digital version of the guide is far superior for the purposes of planning your travel strategy, we offer this option as a service to our customers who wish a hard copy of their purchase. Should you have any additional questions or concerns about the printing of your product, feel free to contact us at support@ezoutdoorsys.com