First I want to thank you for your replies. I was purposefully a bit vague because my company thinks everyone wants to steal their manufacturing secrets. But now I don't care, if they want to censure me for trying to get enough knowledge to get things done right, Let them.
We manufacture custom file folders. Some of the printing is done flexographically and some of the printing is done using offset presses. All of our offset plates , masking sheets and negatives are done in house. We typeset the customer's artwork, printout the artwork via laser printer and do line shots using an old camera in a darkroom (Did I mention my bosses name is Mr. Slate?).
Our mat manufacture is outsourced to a company about 40 miles from where we are located. Their requirements are EPS graphic or Illustrator file with all type converted to paths. We have Illustrator CS 3 but we have to save any file we have back to CS2 for them. They will accept nothing else. And they will not accept PDF files from us either.
At present, our customers, many of them, small businesses from all over the country, create the form that they want on their folders in their own offices using programs like MS Word, Excel, PUblisher and then convert the artwork they created into a PDF file and send that to us. We have received PDF files that are actually scans that had been turned into PDF files. Then there are the faxes that we get tht are also called camera ready artwork which look like 50 ppi bit maps, horrible.
Working with PDF files and converting them into Ai files is an adventure. You never know whether you will have it easy or a major reconstruction to do. When we are doing the work in-house, usually we put our job identification number on the PDf and print it out. Then shoot the line shot and make the masking sheet(s) and plate(s).
The adventure starts starts when the customer sends us a Word file, and we know that the job is going to be printed flexographically. Converting a Word file into an Illustrator file is not a matter of copy and paste even though that can be used every once in a great while. Let me list the problems that I have run across converting Word files into Illustrator files. Problem one being Word is an RGB program, every Word file we get, going into Illustrator has been RGB even if coming from a PDF. I always have to check the color space and convert to CMYK and then begin the laborious process of turning everything from the separations black to 100% K.
A second major headache are the clipping paths that are generated when converting. You can't ungroup any objects or text objects in order to manipulate the artwork in any way, including changing the colors to 100% K. Clipping paths that show the page size of the originator's file, clipping paths for groups of things the original author grouped together, sometimes transcending multiple pages of artwork.
Of course there are the missing font issues when opening PDF files into Illustrator and having to replace fonts with ones system fonts. First printing out the customer's original PDF and then printing out the Illustrator conversion and comparing the two to see where the fonts in the two might be different. It would be great if Acrobat would embed entire font suitcases rather than just the subset of just the characters that are used within the PDf file.
Next are logos. When the customer sends a sample folder they want us to recreate, and it has a logo, we usually have to redraw it. Or they send us a JPG file that is about the resolution of a web graphic. My boss tells us that the jpg looks crappy and to make it look better, the customer tells us that's the best he has…
Well, you see the kind of mess we are up against. This is our every day battle. That's why I asked what everyone's art submission guidelines are. Because of our local office mentality clientele we do have to allow some flexibility, but we do need some major guidelines too.
So thank each and everyone of you who respond. I hope that one day I might be able to give back to you in some way.