StartSmart Planners :: School Planners, Student Planners, College Planners, Academic Planners, Student Handbooks

Student Planner Artwork Preparation Overview

Click here to download our full Digital File Submissions Standards in PDF format.

ELAN provides this guide to creating content that will yield the best possible results. By providing better communication and assistance to you, we eliminate many technical and quality issues.

Files we accept

Documents and files produced on either the Macintosh or Windows (IBM-PC) platform; files can be sent on CD, 100 MB Zip, floppy disk, or via email to your marketing representative. While we can accept email attachments larger than 10 MB, problems in transmission can occur.

Please provide the following with your document

A hard copy of your document and a "press-optimized" .pdf with all fonts embedded; this ensures consistency. Call us for additional information if necessary.
All graphic files and fonts used, along with lists of these items.

Your documents

We use and accept files from the following applications:

Adobe CS (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator)
Quark XPress 6.1 and lower (please save your files down to v. 4)
Pagemaker 7 and lower
Microsoft Word and Excel (please use our pre-formatted templates, which your marketing representative will email to you, to create your handbook and school events files when starting from scratch. If reusing previously prepared documents, please change your page size and margins to match those shown below under design considerations; directions for how to do this can be found on our Digital File Submission Checklist inside the box labeled To Set Up Margins.)

Any other word processor can be used as long as the file is sent as a .txt or .rtf file (text, rich text). Create the document or save as an .rtf or .txt early on, thus eliminating possible formatting issues.

Other File Types

Creating and sending a postscript file (.ps) can deliver your content, whether we have the authoring application or not; contact your IT personnel for help in creating a .ps file. When creating a .pdf, .eps, or .ps file be sure to embed fonts. When distilling a .pdf file, set compression to low or none and image sample settings to 300 dpi or above.

Digital Images

Images should be at least 150 dpi (300 dpi preferred) and CMYK (not RGB); Jpeg compressed files should be set to "highest quality/lowest compression" when created. Web graphics can be used, but are not typically "print quality" and the result is likely to be blurry

Design Considerations

If you are creating files in a page layout application check that the margins are set for the correct page size. Margins should be no less than 3/8" on the top, bottom (½" from the bottom of the text suggested), and inside as well as no less than ¼" on the outside for any book. Therefore:

5" x 8" books should have a maximum print area of 4 3/8" x 7 1/8"

5½" x 8½" books have a maximum print area of 4 7/8" x 7 5/8"

6" x 9" books have a maximum print area of 5 3/8" x 8 1/8"

7" x 8½" books have a maximum print area of 6 3/8" x 7 5/8"

8½" x 11" books have a maximum print area of 7½" x 10¼"

Check that inside margins are at least 3/8" for punched books and ¾" for 3-hole drilled or saddle stitched.

Word: Inserting manual page breaks will ensure proper page breaks; use section breaks only when necessary.

Click here to download our full Digital File Submissions Standards in PDF format.