Getting It Printed

While printing may be one of the last steps in the desktop publishing process, deciding how something will be printed should come much earlier in the process. Your design may dictate how it must be printed but cost and quality affects how you can get it printed - which in turn can affect how you design a piece (B&W, spot color, full color). In other words, design and printing decisions should go hand-in-hand. Chuck Green helps to simplify the print decision with a run-down of when to use desktop printing, a quick copy shop, a commercial printer, and a specialty "theme" printer. At the end of the article readers chime in with there own suggestions as well. IDEABOOK.COM: Printer Versus Press

• What's the difference between a commercial printer and a desktop printer?
• How does commerical offset printing differ from desktop printing?
• Printing Production Time and Money Savers