Details: Print-Ready vs. Ready for End Consumer

I just posted this to my twitter account – and then immediately felt it was too important not to share in a more “permanent” fixture, like my blog.

@ncsulilwolf Pet Peeves from the Advertising/Publishing Industries: Print-ready PDFs (complete with cut marks) being posted to end consumer websites! UGH
I’ll call the offending party out by name, because I know they are much too large to care. I was on the GE consumer products website tonight looking for a manual for a universal remote control (so I can watch Dirty Dancing on the TV here in the office while I work, DUH!).

Now, while the mission was ultimately successful, and I did find the manual, the manual that I found was actually not the one intended for end consumer use.

What I found instead was the print-ready PDF of the manual that had probably been originally sent to the printer. It had all sorts of margins, cut marks, directions, and more. And it wasn’t 100% correctly formatted, so I kept getting all sorts of errors when trying to scroll through the pages. Unfortunately, this document should have simply been passed through Adobe Professional and cropped – at a minimum – before being published to the consumer website.

I see this happen way too often… in all sorts of industries and businesses! In 2010, we all need to take a few more minutes to focus on the details and ensure we’re always offering QUALITY.

Adobe Acrobat Pro is a fully featured version of the Adobe Reader free software and is TOTALLY worth the price. If for no other reason than to make changes like this in case your ad or production agency sends it to you in a format not appropriate for consumers.

And no, this post was in no way sponsored by Adobe… but I do find Acrobat Pro more and more useful each day. (That also goes for Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc.)

Posted by Lisa Jeffries Nobling

A good old-fashioned Southern girl - at home in the modern world.