Lately I’ve been getting customer supplied print files with nothing but headaches.   A few expect me to fix their problem or wave a magic wand over the file to make it press-ready for printing.   sorry, but that’s not my responsibility.   My competitive pricing is based on the receipt of acceptable press-ready electronic files.   That has always been the way I conduct business.   If a file needs fixing I will have to send it out to a graphic designer or have my factory fix the problem (minor) at an additional cost.   It is not my responsibility to fix submitted files to get them to work.   I’ve run up to a gammut of problems including low resolution graphics, Publisher files which are a pain, or in one case, clip art that was “borrowed” off the internet.  

It would be better if customers would invest in using a qualified graphic artist to preflight their files and pay them to fix the problem.   I equate this problem to buying parts from a auto parts store and then taking the parts to their local mechanic and tell him to fix the car.   sorry, but it just doesn’t work that way.

Now that I’ve vented give me your feedback please.

A lot of folks are now using e-newsletters to save on printing costs and higher postal rates.   This is all well and good; however, I can’t stand reading a lot of text on-line.  My opinion is that if you are going to send out more than 2 pages of text than you ought to use the mail.   I don’t like reading mulitple pages on the computer screen as it is harder on my eyes.   Also, I don’t like to have to print out multiple pages on my printer as it sucks up a lot of ink.    The laser and inkjet printer manufacturers must love it when you have to print multiple pages because they make a ton of money on the supplies.

My thought is to use e-newsletters only for the shortened version of your monthly or quarterly newsletters but send a hard copy through the mail when you have more than a couple of pages.    I generally don’t read long newsletters on-line and wait for the hard copy to be sent to me.   I would rather read newsletters at home at night while watching some TV program or just listening to music. 

I would like to solicit other bloggers to see what their thoughts are on this.

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