Prime Time for Seniors Newspaper
Camera Ready Ads
As a general rule, there isn't any camera involved in the modern "Camera Ready" ad, but the term is still
commonly used to describe an ad that is completely designed by the advertiser or their agents. Most Camera
Ready ads are delivered electronicly as files. The preferred method for "Camera ready" ad submission is as
an email attachment mailed to production@primetimeforseniors.com. 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 this purpose. The compression algorithms used by JPEG result in information loss
which will make your ad blurry, especially any text.

The following are our preferences:
  1. TIF file. This is the format that will actually be used to imbed 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)

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.