Many of our customers use Word for their book
layout. Since Word is designed to be a word processor, you can
get some unexpected and troublesome results when you try to use it for book
layout.
One of the significant problems
goes like this: You spend hours setting up your book, and then
export the file(s) to PDF for submission to your printer, only to
hear back that all of your images are 220 dpi or lower.
For good sharp images in printing you need 300 dpi resolution.
How do you get 300 dpi images out of Word?
The first step, of course, is to
put 300 dpi images into Word -- 300 dpi at the size you'll be using
them.
Next, you need to keep Word from
lowering the resolution at the time you insert the image. Word
"wants" to reduce the resolution to make your file smaller. You need
to tell it not do to that, as follows:
Go to File / Options /
Advanced / Image Size and Quality. Check the box that reads Do
Not Compress images in file. Here's how it looks:
Now, any images you insert after this point will
keep their resolution; Word won't compress them.
However, if you have set up your file before you
know about this, any images that are in your file will already have
been compressed, and checking this box will not restore their
resolution. What you need to do after checking this box is to
Delete each image and re-insert it. Gasp! If your images are
neatly organized, this won't take as long as you might think. Just
work on one image at a time - delete - insert - and go on to the
next one. In no time you'll have a file suitable for printing.
You'll still need to use the right print settings
when you make the PDF file, but at least it will be possible now.
Here's how we make PDFs from Word -- we print
to a PDF:
In the File menu of Word, click Print
Select Adobe PDF as the printer. *
Click on Printer Properties
Go to the tab Adobe PDF Settings
Use the dropdown menu under Default Settings
Pick Press Quality
Then click Edit next to that choice
In the left-hand menu that appears, click images
Then for each of the boxes Downsample, select the
resolution you want**
For each of the Compression select Zip (CCITT
for monochrome images)
Then OK, OK and print.
* Depending on what printer you had set while
you were composing your text, just making this selection might
cause your text to reflow. This could happen if the
font width table for your printer differs from that of PDF.
The best way to be sure is to make this selection of printer,
then look through your document on the screen. If
everything looks OK, then proceed with the output.
** For normal photographic or other continuous
tone material, use 300 dpi. For fine line art you might
want to use a higher resolution, like 600 dpi.
