Prime Time for Seniors Newspaper
Ad Layout Assistance
Prime Time News provides basic ad layout assistance, at no addition charge, for your Prime Time for Seniors
ad. Complicated ads and logo implementations may be subject to additional fees. Your sales representative
can advise you if this is the case. For basic ads, you should discuss your design goals with the sales
representative. If you have a sample or sketch, please provide them to us. You can FAX your sketch to the
Prime Time FAX number (720)528-8118 or email it as an attachment in most of the popular bitmap formats or
a PDF to the production@primetimeforseniors.com account. We will set the text using available fonts. If you
have pictures or Logos which you want in the ad, they should be supplied in graphic files included as
attachments to the email sent to the same address. If the objects are not rectangular, it will be very helpful if
they are placed on a rectangular background that is a color that is not used anywhere in the object. Our
tools will then be able to make that color transparent. We can process most of the popular bitmap formats or
we can accept a suitable PDF file. Although we can process JPG (JPEG) files, we strongly discourage their
use for anything accept photographs. The compression algorithms used by JPEG result in information loss
which will make your item blurry, especially any text.

The following are our preferences:
  1. TIF file. This is the format that will actually be used to embed your ad in the page that is sent to the
    printer, so no processing will be done on the file, which gives you maximum control. We use 300 DPI,
    with LZW compression. If the ad is color, the preferred mode is 32 bit CMYK so that no color
    processing will be done. Black and white ads should be 8 bit gray scale.
  2. PNG file. Portable Network Graphics is a reliable bitmap format which has good compression without
    any loss of information. PNG tools often default to the RGB color model. If you cannot set your PNG to
    32 bit CMYK, we will have to perform that conversion.
  3. PDF files. The Portable Document Format can be relatively compact, which makes it easier to transmit.
    It is critical that either all fonts are embedded in the file, or that the text is included as curves.
    Otherwise, font replacement will take place, with potentially significant change to the file. We
    recommend that you preview the PDF file using Adobe Reader which is available free from Adobe.
    Open the PDF file. Under the File commands, you can select the option to view document properties.
    Select the fonts Tab. Make sure that all fonts are listed as either "Embedded" or "Embedded Subset".  
    Under the Description Tab you can view other characteristics of the file. We have had good success
    with PDF Version 1.3 (Acrobat 4.x). We currently use GSview/Ghostscript to convert PDF files to PNG
    files, which we then convert to TIF files using Corel Photopaint which is also used to convert from the
    RGB to the CMYK color model.

If you do not have the software tools to create the files in these formats, there is a free tool available to
Windows users which we have used to create reliable PDF files. It is called CutePDF Writer and is available
free for recent versions of Windows. When installed, it becomes part of your Printer list. You can then "Print"
your ad to it, just like you would print to an actual printer. It will ask for the name of the PDF file to create. You
can view the file with Acrobat Reader.  CutePDF Writer does require that  a PS2PDF converter program be
installed on your PC. They recommend that a version of Ghostscript be used. Ghostscript is also available
for free.

The following links are to web sites that host these free tools:
Adobe Reader
 This is the Adobe Home page. Follow the Links to Adobe Reader.  You can
download and install the current version free of charge.
CutePDF Writer
 This the CutePDF Software home page. You can download the latest
version of CutePDF Writer. It will require a PS2PDF conversion program,
such as Ghostscript, which is free. If you download and install Ghostscipt
first, CutePDF Writer will find Ghostscript and properly link to it during the
CutePDF Writer installation process. They do offer a download of a
version of GPL Ghostcript, which we have not used. We use AFPL
Ghostscript which is available at the University of Wisconsin Ghostscript
page.
Ghostscript
 This is the University of Wisconsin Ghostscript page. Here you can find
descriptions of Ghostscript, as well as links to dowload either AFPL
Ghostscript, GPL Ghostscript, or GNU Ghostscript. You can also obtain a
tool called GSView. This tool can be used with Ghostscript to view PDF
files. GSView provides a graphical interface to Ghostscript, which is a
Command Line program. With GSView, you can open PDF files and
convert them to other formats. One of the options is to create PNG
(Portable Network Graphics) bit map files using the png16m device which
can create color bitmap files at various resolutions.