Teaching Intro to Publishing

[Angstboy]

Hey hey first post! So in addition to slaving at prepress, I con unwitting students into selling their souls to the b1tch goddess that is prepress.

Any how, I got stuck teaching Intro to Publishing. Basically this course is split into two sections; Introduction to the Macintosh and Intro to Publisher on the PC. Yeah I know, odd mix right? Sooo.... I guess my question is what things should I really pound into their heads?

My intial thoughts are:
Stressing Organization
Folder Structure
Naming Conventions
Collecting Files
Basic troubleshooting on the Mac (force quit and the like)
RGB vs CMYK (Prolly won't get much into Color Management)
Resolution
The Joy and Pain of fonts

Any thing else come to mind as important topics?
Have any good links to basic info on Macs and prepress in general?

Thanks

Edited by: Angstboy on Sep 6, 2007 8:37 AM

 

[doubting_thomas]

Re: Teaching Intro to Publishing

This could probably be boiled down to the point that lay people could be taught the basic material:

http://americanprinter.com/mag/printing_best_pdfs/

Good luck with Publisher, since they probably won't let you teach them not to use it.

 

[Cory Smith]

Re: Teaching Intro to Publishing

you might want to go to a bookstore and check out both the intro to publisher and intro to OS X books, see what topics they cover..that could give you a good outline of what needs to be covered for beginners.

 

[michaelejahn]

I like this site;

Direct2Time

if you click on a title (like People Magazine for example) and then click on "PDF Guide" item, this site will help you with settings that People magazine requires for anyone who wants to submit an ad to that magazine - if you can explain why and what all that means, this would be useful for anyone who need to convert their application file into a 'print ready PDF"

example;

People: PDF Guide - Direct2Time

for an overview of what PDF/X is (and why they should care)

An Introduction to PDF/X by Michael Jahn (Book) in Computers & Internet

(or, if you want to download and print this yourself)

Introduction to PDF/X

Good luck !

 

[gordo]

To Angstboy

You might rummage around this site for ideas:

Quality In Print

best, gordon p

 

[SlaveToTheMan]

Run, it's a Zombie Thread!!!!!!

 

[GazKL440]

might also be worth giving students a little grounding in the print process too, taking them to a local print shop so they know how it all works too.. and perhaps gain a better understanding of the system as a whole not just their niche.. definately cant hurt..

 

[spigot]

totally agree gaz. Saves a huge amount of time when the prepress guys know the whys and what fors through and through, and deliver useable plates all the time.

 

[oxburger]

Publisher? Why Publisher and not InDesign or Quark at least?

 

[bmarple]

Convince the school to buy a few copies of InDesign for Windows. Publisher is a nightmare, really isn't intended for professional print in my opinion (I'm certain most would agree). We won't even accept a Publisher file. I realize most commercial shops don't always have the ability to refuse native Publisher files though.
We print education and trade-speciality books where I work. Here are some rough stats for you. 90% of what we receive is PDF supplied. 90% of "all" supplied work originates on a Mac. 60% of "all" work is built within InDesign. 85% of "new" work is built within InDesign (we print a lot of reprints). Simply put, QuarkXPress has been taken over by InDesign. We see about two to four native application jobs that require a Windows box (InDesign or Quark). We output between 10,000 - 15,000 plates per week, so the stats above give you an idea of what the book industry is using. Obviously commercial is more mixed. I can't speak for packaging, but would imagine Illustrator would rule there.
We've had one job that originated within Publisher within the last three or four years. After one book we convinced them to purchase InDesign. Wow, did that make their final files miles cleaner and easier to manage–afterwards, the customer was very pleased with this decision as well.

 

[wordtothis]

might also be worth giving students a little grounding in the print process too, taking them to a local print shop so they know how it all works too.. and perhaps gain a better understanding of the system as a whole not just their niche.. definately cant hurt..

Truer words have never been typed.
ALL of the shops I've worked in have press operators that can't stand prepress operators and vice-versa. I believe this is because one group "knows" that the other doesn't empathize with them. Arguable the most important thing you can impress on your students is to understand the process from beginning to end. Not only will this help them perform their tasks more efficiently, they will have the respect and understanding of their colleagues. When a worker can count on someone in another department to do their job correctly because they know what's required further along in the workflow, it helps all other processes come together more effectively.

 

[oxburger]

I got into printing in 93 by taking a two year course at a community college. I got into it just as the college got rid of a 6 color Heidelberg press and used the proceeds to buy Macs. Thank God for that. I'm now happily entrenched in the prepress side of things. While I've learned most of what I know about prepress by "trial by fire" in the real world, I'm glad I took the program I did. We had classes in the following that helped round out my understanding of the printing world, so hopefully you'll benefit from some of these as ideas.

• Design
• Photography
• Camera (most likely not needed these days)
• Paste up (again, for the dinosaurs)
• Offset press operations (we had to run one good sheet of a duotone image, used 500 make ready to get there, but damnit, it looked good (pressmen insert snicker here) But at least my team wasn't as bad as the team who had their whole dampening roller looking like a paint roller covered in red paint...
• Stripping (can you say "make sure you don't cut through your base") must have used a whole role of ruby tape on my final project.
• Quark
• Estimating
• Paper and Ink
• Photoshop

 

[wordtothis]

I got into printing in 93 by taking a two year course at a community college. I got into it just as the college got rid of a 6 color Heidelberg press and used the proceeds to buy Macs. Thank God for that. I'm now happily entrenched in the prepress side of things. While I've learned most of what I know about prepress by "trial by fire" in the real world, I'm glad I took the program I did. We had classes in the following that helped round out my understanding of the printing world, so hopefully you'll benefit from some of these as ideas.

• Design
• Photography
• Camera (most likely not needed these days)
• Paste up (again, for the dinosaurs)
• Offset press operations (we had to run one good sheet of a duotone image, used 500 make ready to get there, but damnit, it looked good (pressmen insert snicker here) But at least my team wasn't as bad as the team who had their whole dampening roller looking like a paint roller covered in red paint...
• Stripping (can you say "make sure you don't cut through your base") must have used a whole role of ruby tape on my final project.
• Quark
• Estimating
• Paper and Ink
• Photoshop

Ahh yes, manual stripping and camera work. I used to HATE hearing the undergraduates whine and moan about having to strip ONE PROJECT!
And, I don't think there's any great way to teach estimating in school other than just to learn a lot of it on the job. The school environment is too regimented, not true enough to the real thing. Though I think teachers who try to talk about estimating in school programs are very honorable for doing so, there's no comparison with actually doing it, at all.

 

[splenguin]

I realize that it's probably not your decision, but let me emphasize that teaching them Publisher would be a complete waste of their time and yours.

 

[GazKL440]

We used to have students come in on a regular basis from local TAFE colleges, they would be there to learn about "what happens to your file after you hit send" Very very few understood what a printing press was or how it worked, most didnt want to know what happened between 'send' and 'invoice' Im hoping that teaching them about laying up film and burning plates on vacuum frames and the printing process in general might have helped and perhaps bridged the gap between the two rooms... i wonder if any of those students are still in he game...