‘Get this printed for me. I knocked it up in powerpoint.’ Urk.
Our (very unpopular) answer is always NO. If we have said NO to you, this is the reason why.
By the time we get these documents, the ‘sunk cost’ fallacy has kicked in. They have taken ages to make, so they seem valuable. Far more valuable than they deserve. Because they are always chock full of errors.
The time suck is real. PowerPoint, Word, and Canva are wonderful places to noodle around. With unlimited ideas and fun tools, huge amounts of time can wasted.
But PowerPoint doesn’t output to print - it works in RGB not CMYK. Margins that are too small to allow hole punching without slicing into text are a common problem. Brochures with 11 pages in them will have a blank page, somewhere! Canva uses proprietary typefaces which we can’t replicate in the print environment. Word is hideous for more reasons than we have years left on this planet.
The answer is not to make the document ‘printable’.
There is always more than one reason why the document won't work.
Images are always low-res. Or scaled or squeezed out of proportion. There is never an information hierarchy. There isn't any way to create and update content pages. There are always typos. Pages sizes that aren’t quite A4 are quite common.
To make good documents, you first need to know who the audience is. Then you need to know the environment and context in which they will be looking at these documents.
You need to know how to design. You need to use design to help the reader pace through the document.
You have to get the branding right.
And you have to know how to build the document for the end use. Only then can it be ‘output’ to print, HTML, scorm, or PDF. Or interactive PDF or accessible PDF.
‘You can’t get there from here’ is the punchline from an old joke. But if you don’t start from the right place, some journeys will never end where you want them to.
The wrong place to start is:
- using the wrong software,
- lacking an understanding of visual communication, and
- not understanding the requirements of the end-user.
Starting at the right place is vital. Talking to your designer is the best place to start.
Ditch the DIY.
