Understanding commercial printing
If you use commercial printing services for your print jobs, you probably use a service bureau or a printing shop. The service bureau takes your file and converts it directly to film or to plates. The printing shop uses the film from a service bureau to make printing plates.
When you prepare a print job for commercial printing, you can send camera-ready paper output or the work on disk. If you send the work on disk, the service bureau needs either a PostScript file or a native file from the application that you use. If you are creating a file to send to an imagesetter or a plate-setter, speak with the service bureau about the best file format and printing device settings to use. Always provide a final printout of the work to the service bureau, even if it is only a black-and-white representation. This helps the service bureau to identify and assess any potential problems.
Before printing a drawing, you must choose and properly configure the appropriate printing device driver. Consult the printing device manufacturer instructions, or the service bureau or printing shop that you use to print the work, to find out the best way to set up the printing device driver.