PRINTING : How to Prepare Matter for the Press. -- A time conies in most businesses when printed matter is necessary, and an idea of what is wanted in this direction has to be indicated for the printer. Chiefly because of his lack of technical knowledge, the business man has been in the past inclined to leave his printing to the printer, allowing him to worry out the details, and being content with the complete effect when produced. Very often the results were disappointing, hut as everybody was doing the same thing, no serious effort was made to alter the condition. To-day, when the advertising expert has carried printing to such a pitch that only the best can survive for any purpose, it is necessary for the business man to know what he wants and to see that he gets it. The smaller man, who does employ experts accustomed to designing and compiling effective printing matter, is frequently puzzled as to how he shall indicate his needs to his local printer when giving out an order. If he consults any of the technical books on the subject, his confusion is apt to be still more confounded, for the technical book on print ing has a habit of going into details, the mastery of which would almost imply actual experience in the printer's workshop.
To make eGctive printing it is not necessary for the average business man to know different type faces, or the technical names of different type sizes, although many experts would suggest that such a knowledge is indis pensable. Such a knowledge is undoubtedly extremely useful, but it is by no means indispensable, for, as a matter of fact, many printers with complete technical knowledge do not succeed, when left to themselves, in providing the printing the business man wants. The simplest way of ordering print ing is to make up one's mind as to what is wanted. If it is a four-page booklet, the business man who is making it up should decide upon the size. When he has decided upon the size, his next step should be to rule out the four pages to the actual size, or to construct a dummy, cutting the paper to the size he is going to print. With his four pages ruled out and
numbered, or his four pages made up into an actual dummy, it is impossible for the printer to go wrong; and if he does, the blame may be apportioned to him.
Once the four pages, if the matter is to be a four-page booklet, are decided upon, the simplest indication of one's needs is usually the most effective. For the title-page, draw out the title, the sub-title, and the name of the firm, indicating the way they are to be placed by the relative sizes of the letters and the position of the lines. It is quite easy to sketch out the matter on the plan given to illustrate this, indicating the title, the size of the capital, the sub-title, the size of the letter to be used, and also other details of the title-page.
In the subsequent pages the make-up should be outlined in the same way. Page might consist of an illustration, the size of which should be determined, and by roughly ruling out the size of the illustration of this page, the printer's direction afforded by it would be ample. Underneath there might be some lines of letterpress which could be simply indicated by ruled lines. Page 3 might possibly have a title, where again the letters would be indicated roughly in the size they ought to Occupy, and the &flow ing pages would he mapped out according to the matter they were likely to take and the form in which the matter ought to be set. For if the remaining pages consisted of matter set in paragraphic form, they would be indicated by lines drawn to indicate paragraphs, the space between each paragraph ere to go across, it would be advisable to put the headings in suggesting the size of lettering in which they should be set. If the letterings were to be brought to the side, this would be indicated in the rough make-up in the same way. If the headings were to be inset in paragraphs, it would be possible to write the titles in the space they ought to occupy, and indicate how the type should go round them.