File types explained

BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, TGA, EPS, AI, PDF, DOC?  What a selection of ways to send us pictures, logos and text!  Which is best?

They are all useful for different purposes, so we'll describe each of them here in simple, non-technical terms so you can see what will deliver the very best printed results.

BMP

WindowsT Bitmap.  MicrosoftT Windows'T own graphics file format.  Comes in two versions "8 bit" or "16 bit".  This simply means the number of different colours the format contains.  8 bit files can only contain up to 256 colours, so they are fine for simple logos - but not for photographs.  BMP files are very large though compared with some of the other graphic formats.  Whilst the quality can be excellent, there are more efficient ways to send graphics.

GIF

Graphics Interchange Format.  An "8 bit"-only format originally developed by CompuserveT.  As with 8 bit BMP files, GIFs are fine for logos and images with a few colours.  Not recommended for anything photographic.  However if you're sending us a logo, a GIF format file is one of the best ways.

JPEG

A format developed by the Joint Photographic Experts Group.  JPEGs can be excellent for photographs providing the compression has not been set too high.  If compression has been set very high in order to create very small file sizes, detail is lost and squarish discolourations appear, especially around sharp lines or abrupt changes in colour.

If you're saving a photograph for use in printing use the least compression / maximum quality setting in your image editing or scanning software.  The example on the left is from Adobe PhotoShop.

PNG

Portable Network Graphics.  A more recent format, the best attribute of which is it is "lossless".  That is no quality is lost in compression.  PNG pictures are an excellent alternative to BMP.

TIFF

Another usually lossless graphics format, but one which creates large files.  Often used  by professional printers, we may very well convert your images into TIFFs before printing them.

TGA

TruevisionT Targa graphics format.  Often used by AppleT MacintoshT.  Optionally, a lossless RLE compression can be employed.   Frankly, we don't expect to come across many of this format these days; we'll include it here though for the sake of completeness.  There are better ways of sending us files, but if you have an original digitised picture in this format, we can print from it.

EPS

Encapsulated PostScript.  Often used for the originals for logos, etc.  If your designer has given you a master EPS file of your logo, this is undoubtedly the best one to send us.  The advantage of EPS files is they are infinitely scaleable without any loss of quality.

AI

AdobeT IllustratorT.  Exactly the same comments apply as above.  An excellent format in which to send us your logo.  This will always reproduce perfectly with no loss of definition.

PDF

Portable Document Format.  Another AdobeT format but usually used for whole documents.  Sending us text in this fashion, or a text-only print job is fine, but graphics sent in this format suffer.  PDF is a highly compressed format and images are reduced in definition to save overall file size.

Also, PDF files cannot be "reverse engineered".  This means we can (usually) extract the text and observe and duplicate the layout but we can't take a PDF file and edit it directly - only the original creator can do that - and only then, providing he/she still has the original!

We can look at it and, as we say above, usually extract the text so it does not have to be retyped, but the layout has to be recreated from scratch.  If you still have the original pictures or logos we would need those separately as well.

DOC

MicrosoftT OfficeT WordT Document.  Useful to send us text and your desired ideas on formatting and layout.  We will not however usually print from a Word Document.  We need to transfer the text and recreate the layout in our professional page layout software.  A word document is however a good start.

RTF

To solve any "version" problems between old and new versions of Word, you can also send us an RTF file.  Word will create these on demand (just choose the RTF file type from the drop-down list when you save the file - as shown on the left).  RTF stands for Rich Text Format and is certain to open in all versions of MicrosoftT WordT.
 

We hope this page had proven useful to you.  We are anxious to create the very best result for every print job we undertake.  If you are in any doubt as to what we can do, click here to get in touch!  Alternatively, call us on 01202 420442.