Converting type in PS for PDF printing

[JohnT]

A woman at a print shop told me that I need to convert the type in my business card file to "curves" in PS before saving it as a PDF for them to send to the actual printer. Could she have possibly meant convert the type to "Shapes" or "Paths?" There is no type-to-curves option in PS.

[JohnT]

Got it resolved. She meant "rasterize" the type.

[janikphoto]

Originally Posted by JohnT

Got it resolved. She meant "rasterize" the type.

She was VERY confused. She was using a term that people might use when converting type in Illustrator or Indesign. It's not the same conversion in Photoshop, because rasterizing doesn't create paths. However, you are correct that rasterizing would definitely solve the printer's problem. But, it might cause your text to come out looking a bit fuzzy.

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by janikphoto

She was VERY confused. She was using a term that people might use when converting type in Illustrator or Indesign. It's not the same conversion in Photoshop, because rasterizing doesn't create paths. However, you are correct that rasterizing would definitely solve the printer's problem. But, it might cause your text to come out looking a bit fuzzy.

PS will convert type to paths. Do you think this would be a better way to go than rasterizing?

[janikphoto]

Originally Posted by JohnT

PS will convert type to paths. Do you think this would be a better way to go than rasterizing?

It would make sense that PS can now do the same thing that IL and ID can do, since Adobe has been making the creative suite programs work more alike. If the printer can accept a PS PDF with paths, I would do it! Rasterizing is what causes what looks like overspray from a spray paint airbrush around letters and shapes.

The BEST way to submit files is with the fonts in place, but printers hate that, because they often won't have the exact same font on their end. This means they either need to replace it with a similar font (causing design issues and wasted time) or change it to paths (wasting time).

Having all the type changed to paths is the second best way to do things, as it prints just as good as the original font, but makes last minute text changes very hard (because all the type was changed to shapes, so you can't just erase and retype the correct spelling/word/phrase when you catch an error). An easy fix for this is to save the "unpathed" version and keep it as a backup, incase you need to alter the text.

The third best way is to rasterize everything. If they can print a photo, they can print your document. Basically, that's because rasterizing is turning it into an actual image, like the trees and people on the photo... Easiest to print and hardest to alter. Plus, like I mentioned above, rasterized text doesn't have sharp edges and lines... it always comes out a tiny bit fuzzy, compared to text from paths or fonts.

[JohnT]

Thanks, Jason! I knew someone around here would know all about this stuff.