PDF How-To Guide

The PDF Print Production Guide, released this month by the Graphic Arts Technical Foundation (GATF), explores the problems, solutions, and techniques of using Portable Document Format (PDF) files in a prepress or print production environment. Within this environment, say authors Joseph Marin and Julie Shaffer, PDF files must be created for a variety of uses: screen (for soft proofing and correction cycles), print (for digital printing), and press.

The $45 how-to book outlines step-by-step instructions on how to fix myriad PDF print production problems, as well as offers specific procedures for creating print-perfect PDF files using standard Acrobat software tools, says GATFPress. A history of PDF and the Adobe Acrobat software family is presented, as is an entire chapter devoted to answering common PDF questions, taken directly from GATF training programs and seminars.

Contact GATF at (800) 662-3916 or gain.net.

Fold: The Professional's Guide to Folding, Volumes 1 and 2 provide all of the necessary information required to make a confident and educated decision regarding folding techniques for printed matter, says GATFPress, which is distributing this new extensive and systematic guide of folding techniques from Finishing Experts Group, Inc.

Comprising 864 pages and more than 1,500 illustrations, the $145 soft-cover two-volume set describes and illustrates more than 180 folding styles, breaking them down into eight folding families: accordions, basics, exotics, gates, maps, parallels, posters, and rolls.

Author Trish Witkowski has named and numbered each folding style so as to promote effective communication among all parties involved, from sales representatives talking with customers to preflight operators working with press crews. Considerations and limitations of production are addressed, as is level of difficulty and format options.

Contact GATF at (800) 662-3916 or gain.net.