Printing Companies
  1. About Printing Industry
  2. Printing Services
  3. Print Buyers
  4. Printing Resources
  5. Classified Ads
  6. Printing Glossary
  7. Printing Newsletters
  8. Contact Print Industry
Who We Are

Printing Industry Exchange (printindustry.com) is pleased to have Steven Waxman writing and managing the Printing Industry Blog. As a printing consultant, Steven teaches corporations how to save money buying printing, brokers printing services, and teaches prepress techniques. Steven has been in the printing industry for thirty-three years working as a writer, editor, print buyer, photographer, graphic designer, art director, and production manager.

Need a Printing Quote from multiple printers? click here.

Are you a Printing Company interested in joining our service? click here.

The Printing Industry Exchange (PIE) staff are experienced individuals within the printing industry that are dedicated to helping and maintaining a high standard of ethics in this business. We are a privately owned company with principals in the business having a combined total of 103 years experience in the printing industry.

PIE's staff is here to help the print buyer find competitive pricing and the right printer to do their job, and also to help the printing companies increase their revenues by providing numerous leads they can quote on and potentially get new business.

This is a free service to the print buyer. All you do is find the appropriate bid request form, fill it out, and it is emailed out to the printing companies who do that type of printing work. The printers best qualified to do your job, will email you pricing and if you decide to print your job through one of these print vendors, you contact them directly.

We have kept the PIE system simple -- we get a monthly fee from the commercial printers who belong to our service. Once the bid request is submitted, all interactions are between the print buyers and the printers.

We are here to help, you can contact us by email at info@printindustry.com.

Blog Articles for PrintIndustry.com

Archive for the ‘InDesign Software’ Category

Commercial Printing: Thoughts on a Printed Calendar

Thursday, August 9th, 2012

I have recently been designing a calendar for a client of mine. She is a professional photographer. She takes photos of beautiful flowers. In preparing the files and reviewing digital proofs today, I addressed a number of issues I thought you might find useful in your own design and custom printing work. (more…)

Custom Printing: What Is a RIP and What Does It Do?

Saturday, March 24th, 2012

I think it’s fair to say that a RIP is one of the more important elements of a successful commercial printer’s prepress workflow. A RIP translates the arcs and curves of PostScript code into a matrix of dots that can be printed by the custom printing vendor’s platesetter or imagesetter. It is a universal translator, a Rosetta Stone for printers. It can print the pages you compose in InDesign or Quark, or if your files are not created appropriately, the RIP can choke and not print your work. (more…)

Custom Printing Options for Creating and Proofing PDFs

Sunday, March 11th, 2012

We are inundated with PDFs today. Almost every application you own can create a Portable Document Format file, from OpenOffice to Microsoft Word to Adobe Acrobat. But if you are a graphic designer, how do you know that the PDF you are creating for your commercial printer is appropriate for the target offset or digital printing technology? How do you know your job won’t go horribly wrong? (more…)

Custom Printing and Digital Copyright

Sunday, January 29th, 2012

I recently designed a print book of poems for a local writer, and a print book of flower photographs for a local photographer. In an attempt to solicit more design work from another potential client, I considered emailing the prospective client PDF samples of the two books I had just completed. After all, I considered this akin to showing a digital portfolio, just as I used to open my physical portfolio and display printed copies of my design work. Fortunately, I paused before acting. I then sent emails to both the poet and the photographer asking permission to share their work. (more…)

Book Printing: How to Make Illegible Type Legible

Sunday, January 1st, 2012

A client of mine just produced a “galley” of her book, 100 digitally-printed reader’s copies for her reviewers to critique before the final offset custom printing run. She loves it, but her husband thinks the type is too small. (more…)

Commercial Printing: Making Corrections to Your Files at the Proof Stage

Saturday, December 31st, 2011

I recently received a digital proof for a small poetry book I had designed for a client. The following paragraphs describe the items I looked for in checking the proof. You may want to take a similar approach in reviewing your proofs. (more…)

Custom Printing: Preparing Your Printing Job for Commercial Printers

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

You have found the custom printing vendor‘s FTP site and you’re about to send your files to press. With bated breath, you hope that you caught all the errors, formatted all the files correctly, and didn’t make any mistakes that will be expensive to fix. Before you push the send button, here are some things to check. (more…)

Custom Printing: InDesign and Photoshop Tips

Monday, December 12th, 2011

I have been doing more freelance design work recently, working in Photoshop and InDesign, preparing layouts for commercial printers. I have learned, or relearned, a number of tips and tricks that you might find helpful in your design work. Here they are, listed in no particular order but separated into two categories: Photoshop and InDesign. (more…)

Book Printing with Digital Printing Companies: Holding Detail in Highlights and Shadows

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

A client of mine is preparing a high school textbook for custom printing with an online printing company. The layout is complete, and she has turned her attention to adjusting the cover and text photos. Today she asked for the “dot range” the business printing provider could hold on press. (more…)

Brochure Printing: From Paste-up to Computer Design

Monday, August 15th, 2011

A colleague who started designing art files for book printing a few years ago asked me to distinguish between layout and paste-up. The question brought to mind all of the changes in the field of design and custom printing over the 34 years I have been in the business. I’ll provide an answer for the question my colleague asked, but I will go further to mention some of the other changes I have witnessed. (more…)

Archives

Recent Posts

Categories


Read and subscribe to our newsletter!


Printing Services include all print categories listed below & more!
4-color Catalogs
Affordable Brochures: Pricing
Affordable Flyers
Book Binding Types and Printing Services
Book Print Services
Booklet, Catalog, Window Envelopes
Brochures: Promotional, Marketing
Bumper Stickers
Business Cards
Business Stationery and Envelopes
Catalog Printers
Cheap Brochures
Color, B&W Catalogs
Color Brochure Printers
Color Postcards
Commercial Book Printers
Commercial Catalog Printing
Custom Decals
Custom Labels
Custom Posters Printers
Custom Stickers, Product Labels
Custom T-shirt Prices
Decals, Labels, Stickers: Vinyl, Clear
Digital, On-Demand Books Prices
Digital Poster, Large Format Prints
Discount Brochures, Flyers Vendors
Envelope Printers, Manufacturers
Label, Sticker, Decal Companies
Letterhead, Stationary, Stationery
Magazine Publication Quotes
Monthly Newsletter Pricing
Newsletter, Flyer Printers
Newspaper Printing, Tabloid Printers
Online Book Price Quotes
Paperback Book Printers
Postcard Printers
Post Card Mailing Service
Postcards, Rackcards
Postcard Printers & Mailing Services
Post Card Direct Mail Service
Poster, Large Format Projects
Posters (Maps, Events, Conferences)
Print Custom TShirts
Screen Print Cards, Shirts
Shortrun Book Printers
Tabloid, Newsprint, Newspapers
T-shirts: Custom Printed Shirts
Tshirt Screen Printers
Printing Industry Exchange, LLC, P.O. Box 394, Bluffton, SC 29910
©2019 Printing Industry Exchange, LLC - All rights reserved