Printers etc

[Pastis]

So far, three times this month I have sent out a piece of work (graphical / design) on a PDF file only to be told by the person on the other end that when they print it out it's the wrong size 

Each time I've checked and IT IS EXACTLY THE RIGHT SIZE! Each time it's THEIR printer settings buggering the thing about. The worst one was someone in the trade who said he couldn't print out anything bigger than A4 

I realise that now the world and his wife has a PC and a printer in tow, they assume that everything arrives exactly as sent. Does no one check printer settings? Print dialogue boxes? Sizes?   

[Snoopy]

I think you know the answer to that.

[Snoopy]

Editing a magazine I get sent all sorts of stuff. My pet hate are those who use "Publisher" because they think it's the right thing for an article. NO IT ISN'T! Just send it in as a Word Document and leave it to me to do the fancy stuff. M/Soft Publisher has to be the work of the Devil. It just doesn't work and once they have sent it to me I cannot change a thing in it without hours of faffing around. They cannot get it through their thick heads that we publish in A5 format, in black and white .... so all the fancy stuff in Publisher, which they always size A4, in all pretty colours, may look good on their screen but it looks crap when I have to resize each little box and then print it in B&W. 

Main culprits are the wives/girlfriends of plumbers, builders, gardeners, electricians etc. These wimmin work in offices and think they know all there is to know about "Computers" so they take on the responsibility of transferring their partner's scribbled idea onto the screen. I now seek out the man and ask him what he really wants to say and do it myself.

[Pastis]

In answer to the initial statement; Indeed I do. The answer is to keep the reins of the whole job to oneself and not to allow anyone else to muck about. Problem is that the client, or even a relation for whom one's doing a favour, resents it.

Same goes for fonts.  Screen and printer. And then they ask why I have to buy it 

[Snoopy]

I confess that when they complain that I have changed their "creation" I always blame the printer ~ not the little grey box that whirrs away next to me but the big hairy Welsh guy with the ink stained hands and impenetrable accent who I rely on.

[Pastis]

Getting rid of someone else's formatting's a pain in the @rse. I usually convert it to raw text and start from scratch.
Thankfully I've haven't been sent anything in publisher.

I have a client who persists in sending me files of completed work (allegedly) which I then have to take to bits and re-assemble in Photoshop. I've tried to let him down gently and tell him to just send me the material but he won't have it; he values my professional input apparently and pays... so, I guess, let sleeping dogs lie.

[Pastis]

I confess that when they complain that I have changed their "creation" I always blame the printer ~ not the little grey box that whirrs away next to me but the big hairy Welsh guy with the ink stained hands and impenetrable accent who I rely on.

The consummate professional as ever 

You could also use the digital vs. litho argument 

[Snoopy]

I had one woman (no NOT in that sense) who wanted her advert in pretty pink.
I told her that we are Black and White only but still she wanted Pink so I quoted her the cost of printing the 40 page magazine with colour = x5 the normal price. She still argued that it was "only one little advert"

But madam ~ one little advert x 1300 copies


Must go ~ SWMBO is out and Boys have to be taken to swimming club.

[Pastis]

Understood that you need to go...

A parting thought, or one to return to. Much of the problem I encounter is down to a mix of technologies. As you've highlighted, there is the totally fallacious assumption that just because you have a computer and can 'design' stuff on it, then all is well. Totally not the case. Take silk screen printing for example which is still used today in various industries; it's about 1,000 years old and came to the West in the 18thC. Some factories I send work to use it, an 18thC technique... how many PC users would know how to output a file on their 21stC computer that will be usable for a technology like that?

[Snoopy]

So the consensus is that all Clients/Customers are idiots put on this earth for the sole purpose of aggravating us

[Bar Wench]

YES!

Print monkeys are also idiots of the highest order!

[Uncle Mort]

Print monkeys? 

[Pastis]

Sales reps / account handlers from commercial print companies?

[Bar Wench]

The plonkers that run the large printers. 

[Snoopy]

That's why I use a local mad Welshman, one man business (Well he does the printing and his unmarried sister does the folding and stapling.) He is not married either and they live with "Mother".