We offer a good 20 lb. paper for “standard” printing. If you’re choosing offset to obtain the finest quality printing available, you may want us to custom order paper for your job. Please come in and look over our paper samples.

Preparing for Prepress

Each page of an offset job requires a camera-ready original. From these we make the plates that go onto the printing press to print the page. Camera-ready originals are part of the prepress services offered by the Art Department.

For the best quality camera-ready originals, we need a computer file of your job.

You may give us your file on removable media (diskette, zip disk, etc.) or send it to: Ricardo.Ceballos@sweetwaterschools.org

If top quality is not your main objective, we can use a printed document for the camera-ready original.

For black and white, we can use a good, clean printed document as your camera-ready original. If your document is not really clean and sharp, this alternative may not produce very high quality offset output.

Additional Services

Offset printing does not include prepress services, collating or finishing. Your job will need one or both of the following:

Prepress – See above for information about prepress

Collating and Finishing – Collating and finishing options, such as folding, binding, and hole punching are done in our bindery. Please see The Bindery section for options.

Letterheads and Carbonless Forms

Letterhead Options

We recommend the offset press for letterheads and other materials that will be used on a laser printer.

Standard Letterhead

For the best letterhead, order the standard letterhead from our Graphics Department.

Paper Tips

• Choose 24 lb. rag (watermarked) paper for formal letters
• Choose 20 lb. bond for less formal communications, such as memos

Carbonless Forms

• Carbonless forms, also called NCR forms, are printed on the offset press

Keeping Your Form Costs Low

Use these cost-cutting measures for your form projects:

• Order only the number of parts you really need (2 part, 3 part, etc.)
• Make each page of the set identical
• Provide a printed copy of your form as the camera-ready original

Lay out small forms for easy cutting.

When designing small forms, make them proportional to an 8.5 x 11 inch page and lay out multiple forms on the page. For example, for an 8.5 x 11 inch page:

Proportional size – Forms per sheet

• 3.5 x 5 inch – 4
• 4.25 x 5.5 – 4
• 3.25 x 8.5 – 3
• 5.5 x 8.5 – 2

Use pre-collated sets

The page colors in pre-collated sets are in the order shown below. If you want the colors in a different order, your forms will have to be collated after printing, at an additional charge.

Order of Colors in Pre-Collated Sets

• 2-part set – White, Yellow or White, Pink
• 3-part set – White, Yellow, Pink
• 4-part set – White, Yellow, Pink, Goldenrod
• 5-part set – White, Green, Yellow, Pink, Goldenrod
• 6-part set – White, Blue, Green, Yellow, Pink, Goldenrod