Creating Custom Word Templates 2

[phej]

Hello Everyone!

I am trying to create a new Word Template for my company's CEO. She wants to use it for PDFed documents so that any communique we send looks like our it was printed on our corporate letterhead.

Our corporate letterhead has our logotype (a yellow, angled, exclaimation point) extending from the middle of the page on the left side to the middle of the bottom. To replicate this I have made a watermark (not washed out) of just the "point" and added it to the document.

The header of our letterhead has our full logo I have added this as a transparent .png graphic in the header of the document and the footer has our contact information, which I have added to the footer as a transparent .png graphic.

The template looks great in word view but when I print it the graphics look a little messy and when I PDF it the graphics look horrible. Is there a better format to use when adding graphics to word?

You can see a smaller version of what I'm trying to replicate here. If you have any questions, feel free to respond or email me and any help you can give would be fantastic!

Thanks in advance!

 

[fumei]

Word is NOT a true desktop publisher software - as much as Microsoft would like to pretend it is. I am saying that as a Word fan, so no disrespect intended. It is simply that Word is not Quark Xpress, or anything like it.

Word can handle graphics, it simply does not do a great job.

First of all, try not using png. Try using a BMP or a JPEG. It may look a little better.

Second of all, try putting your contact information in the footer as text, rather than a graphic. Is there a real need for it to be a graphic? If there is not - use text.

How does your watermark do?

Gerry

 

[phej]

Fumei,
BMPs are a good idea, however, they still look a little jaggy when printed and PDFed - granted, better than the pngs or jpgs looked, but not where I'd like them to be, especially on the logo. If I can get the logo to look great, I'd be willing to settle for the background being a little jaggy.

Any other ideas?

 

[SusanRice]

I would try a .tif type file. This is a tagged information file and maintains the resolution, perspective sizing, etc withing the file itself. Agree on whenever to can put text, do it as you will not have the resolution, jagged issues.

 

[phej]

Good suggestion on the tifs. Do you think it would make the filesize too large? I don't want our clients to be waiting forever for the pdf to load.

 

[fumei]

Totally agree with Susan. Absolutely, if you can, use TIFF, especially uncompressed. They are significantly better than BMP, or JPEG. The only reason to not use TIFF is the file size is usually greater. However, if you can, use TIFF.

How was your logo created? If possible, go back to the original application that made it, and save it as TIFF. I do not know what was used, but if possible redo it as vector, rather than raster. That way, you should be able to completely reduce the jaggedness.

Gerry

 

[phej]

It was created in Illustrator. But up until now I've been exporting to Photoshop and saving as png or bmp. I'll re-export everything and let you know how it goes.

Thanks so much!

 

[fumei]

Save it from Illustrator as TIFF and it will make a huge difference.

Gerry

 

[tf1]

Unless you want to fill your server drives and exceed your tape backup capacity, don't use TIFFs!

You need to prepare your graphics in an external Grahics Editor: use something like the free IrfanView editor.

Open the original (high quality) graphic and use IrfanView tools to make it the correct size for your document, reduce the dpi to around 144/150dpi which will look great on screen and be good enough to convert to PDF. Save the files as high quality JPEGS (MINIMUM compression). They will still be a fraction of the size of a TIFF. You may also be able to reduce the colour depth of the logo, depending on the colours used in the original (you'll need to experiment with this setting: sometimes as little as 16 colours may suffice, othertimes you may need 64 or 256 colours - depending on the logo).

When you put them into Word, DON'T copy and paste a graphic: always use Insert, Picture, From File...

I've created templates for many companies for this purpose - mailmerging flyers or creating PDF to send as attachments.

Remember that if these PDFs are going to be read on screen, screen resolution is only 72dpi and most printers are at best 600dpi and more often than not, 150dpi will produce a good quality logo (we are not talking about 32-bit colour photographs!).

Regards: tf1

 

[fumei]

tf1 is correct as usual. As noted, TIFF files are huge. If it is one or two you are talking about, I don't think this is an issue, but if you are talking many....tf1 is quite right, storage will eat up things quickly.

His suggestion to reduce the color depth is also an excellent suggestion. From looking at your logo, this is a VERY good suggestion and a strong recommendation.

tf1 - your attention to details is wonderful. Gonna give you a pointy thing for that.

Gerry

 

[phej]

Yea, filesize is an issue and that's why I balked at the suggestion of the tif. Today's been crazy and I haven't even had a change to try out the tif, let alone irfanview.

But I will and will let you know. Thank you so much for all your help up to this point!

Jeph