Printing Business Cards on Avery Labels

[Jenn_Corr@adobeforums.com]

Hi there,

I've created a business card in Illustrator CS and was hoping someone can guide me through printing them. I have these Avery labels for printing business cards that I want to use (they are 10 up). I've always exported to MS Publisher but the quality really 'stinks' compared to what I print with Illustrator.

If anyone can help guide me, I'd really appreciate it (I'm very new at this).

Many thanks in advance.

Jenn

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

Jenn,

If you are asking about printing them yourself, say, on an ink jet printer, I heartily recommend Avery product no. 8871 -- 10 up, nice weight, bright white, ink jet matte coated, no cutting, no perfs (they peel off clean after printing). Keep your file in RGB mode so that you can color manage the output.

If you are asking about having them printed commercially, I strongly recommend you talk to your printer. You will most likely be asked to provide a CMYK file.

=-= Harron =-=

[Jenn_Corr@adobeforums.com]

Hi Harron,

Yes, those are the labels that I have and would like to print them on for myself. I'm just not sure on how to set it up in Illustrator (to print 10 up and fit the sheet).

I've done this in MS Publisher, but the quality is really bad if I save the Illustrator document to a .tif and export to Publisher, so I was wondering how I can get this straight from Illy to my printer.

(Btw, I was always told that anything to be printed should be cmyk and if it's to go on the web it should be rgb. Is this wrong?)

Thanks in advance for your help :)

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

Jenn,

I would start by making a template for the Avery sheet. Avery probably has some pre-made ones available for download, but it's so easy to do in Illustrator yourself. Use a ruler to measure the sheet. Then, on a letter-sized artboard in IL, draw boxes and lines corresponding to the card edges. Convert to guides, then lock down that layer.

Now copy and paste your art into the 10-up document. You can paste 10 times or dupe the art using any number of techniques. There are also many techniques that will save you the time trouble of manually aligning the art 10 times. You might try the transform effect under Effect | Distort & Transform.

Once you're satisfied everything is in place, print. Use settings for photo matte or photo-quality ink jet paper in your printer dialog.

I recommend you do a couple of test prints on plain paper first. Hold it up against the Avery sheet over a bright light to check alignment. Nudge your art or check page tiling if the alignment is off.

If you want to use a color-managed workflow to ensure a close match between what you see on your monitor and what is output, you'll have to study up on color management.

(Btw, I was always told that anything to be printed should be cmyk and
if it's to go on the web it should be rgb. Is this wrong?)




Yes, that's wrong. Desktop inkjet printers are RGB devices, their CMYK inks notwithstanding. If you're using a software RIP that makes your printer emulate a Postscript device, that's a different story. You use CMYK for Postscript output.

=-= Harron =-=