I’ve been holding off on writing the Update for November in hopes that our new folder, and new Xerox Iridesse would be up and running. But as the saying goes, “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry*.” And that’s what’s happened for us. The port strike in Montreal meant that the container ship carrying our folder was held up and sat for some time in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence waiting for the port to reopen. Once it reopened there was another delay as the port had to process the backlog. And then once unloaded there was another delay as the rail yard had to process their backlog. So we’re still waiting. The folder is in Canada, in a rail yard in Montreal waiting to be loaded onto a train.
And our new Xerox Iridesse was also delayed, this time because of Canada Customs. We needed one special part and without it we could not proceed. That part, for some reason, was held by Canada Customs for more than a week! It finally arrived and on Thursday the installation process began. As of today – November 27 – we are able to print sheets again, and are nearly ready to go live with our first job! Super exciting times.
Although it’s great to have the machine up and running we’re still waiting on a few more pieces, a software update, and the fluorescent pink module before we’re able to realize the benefit of getting this new machine. All of that will come in the next two weeks and then we’ll really be cookin’!
The folder could show up on Monday, or be a few more weeks. We are unable to get any sort of timeline on it from the shipping company.
Wodapalooza
In previous emails I’ve mentioned that my son Ewan is a competitive CrossFit athlete. In January we are heading to Wodapalooza in Miami where he will compete on the world stage. His training routine has really amped up and he’s expecting to do well. I’ll be sure to keel everyone updated on his results.
* The saying is adapted from a line in “To a Mouse,” by Robert Burns:
“The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!”
| ** COURIER DATES ** December 16th – Last day to ship by Ground for delivery to US & Extended Areas. December 16th – Last day to ship by Ground for delivery across Canada (domestic). December 20th – Last day to ship by Air for International delivery. December 23rd – Last day to ship by Air for delivery across Canada and the US.** The earlier you can ship the better – a refund on your shipping doesn’t matter if it doesn’t arrive before Christmas ** |
| ** IMPORTANT INFO ** – Our offices and production will be closing on December 24 by noon, and reopening on January 2.- The Canada Post strike is ongoing. No end in sight but we anticipate the government stepping in as the financial implications to the Canadian economy are too great to ignore. |
| Crop Marks & Page Sizes We get an awful lot of files provided as “print-ready” but they really aren’t. They look good, and provide the functionality that the artist needed or wanted, but they are lacking when it comes to the technical details that we need. And this almost always means we have to rebuild the file. When building a file in any of the current Adobe Creative Cloud apps it’s important that you build the page size to the actual size of the page you want produced. Building the art on an artboard that matches the page size of your desktop proofing device may make it easy for you to print it, but it doesn’t work at our end. In these situations you should build the artwork to the correct size, and then add a second overlapping artboard at your printer page size, or just become a master and manipulating the print dialog window! The proper page size and bleed settings are important for us as our imposition software reads this data and builds the layout from that. If your piece is 5″ x 7″ but you’ve placed it on an artboard that is 11″ x 17″, and then just drawn in a rectangle as the cut line, or drawn in your own crop marks, none of that data is embedded in the file. The only data is that it’s an 11″ x 17″, and that’s just wrong. In these cases we have to open the source files, create a new artboard or page to the correct size, ensure that your art is placed onto this new page correctly, and then process the files again. This adds time, cost, and introduces risk that the file changed from what you sent to what we process. If you need space for your slug, or other page information, you can add that in the page setup for the document you’re building. Or as noted above build a second, overlapping artboard at your printer page size and choose that when exporting/printing at your end. Delete it, or leave it, in the file you send to us. We’ll know what’s what when we preflight the files. Next month, preflight – what is it and how do we do it. |