For printing on any of our copiers, images should be scanned at 300 dpi for grayscale and color, and at 600 dpi for line art. If you will be printing to press, scan grayscale and color images at 300 dpi and line art at 1200-2400 dpi. Scanning at higher resolutions will not improve the print quality, but will make the file size larger and take more time to upload. Images for the color copiers should be RGB. For press only, they should be CYMK. Please call our downtown store (406-586-7007) if you would like more information.

The best format to send us your files is in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format. If you don't have the full version of Acrobat on your system, we recommend you purchase and install it. Acrobat provides the most flexibility for printing and web use. One advantage of using Acrobat PDF files is that they allow you to see how your file will look when printed.

PDF Creator is a free open source program which also can produce PDF files on Windows based systems. It's based on GNU/AFPL Ghostscript and installs a a printer driver. It can be downloaded from SourceForge.net. To use it, after it's installed, simply print your document using this printer.

If you are using a Mac, the simple answer is to upgrade to OS X. If you are using OS X, all you have to do is print to PDF and upload this file.

Another less desirable way of sending us your files is to send PostScript (PS) files which are compressed using either ZIP or StuffIt compression. This may be an alternative for Mac users.

Another choice for sending us files is using the native program files. If you do use this method, there may be an additional charge for file prep. Also, please make sure to embed the fonts or at least include them. In Word or Publisher, you can enable font embedding from the options menu under the save tab.

If you have any questions about any of this, please call or e-mail us.