Hi dave! I see you are in Lyndhurst; I take the train there. We own two 7000's plus a Xerox 250, and other BW equip. Dave, your question is kind of broad. This is what we do in our shop... 1 - All clients are requested to submit PDF files. 2 - No Native files (ie mystuff.AI, mystuff.docx, mystuf.xls, mystuff.ind,etc.) We have printers and error omission insurance, and we charge a $125.00 and up fee to open ANY file that is not a PDF for a client. Over the past 20 years, we have gone through more than 2 dozen incidents where we opened an -for ex. Excel file, a corporate report was printed (over 1,000 booklets) then a numerical typo appear (it said 5K, when it should have said 5M)... guess who got blamed??? Exactly! We did! Strategically, I specifically requested the file on a CD-ROM -even though the client complained and wanted to send it via email; so I was able to take the CD-ROM back to the client and point out that it was his fault 3 - ALL PDF files MUST be FLATTENED! before being submitted to us. Remember that most new versions of all graphic/typesetting programs save PDF with layers intact! So you MUST ask your clients to flattened the files. 4 - All fonts MUST be embedded in the PDF (embedding a subset of a font sometimes causes weird problems with Fiery) 5 - PDF security MUST be disable. 6 - For books and other copyrighted material make sure your client signed a release form (indicating that he-she owns the material or has permission from the publisher; NJ has some very tricky laws! Also in the same form you can add a "Hold-Harmless" clause to protect you! 7 - A lot of clients use PDF clones; we find OFTEN problems with such files. 8 - All your clients who use Adobe products (InDesign, Illustrator, etc.) tell them to disable file compression when printing the PDF; otherwise you will have a lot of unhappy clients who will blame you and your equipment for their pictures printing in low-res. Dave unfortunately, duty calls! I am being summoned; hope this helps. Let me know through this medium if I can help. Best regards, Ralph
Best way is PDF. the print buyer should know what color space they should work on during the file preparation.