how i'm making money & illustrator advice please!

lavenderlass

Hi, I hope you don't mind me asking a tecchie question here. I'm really struggling to work because of various health conditions but I love old buildings and worked really hard to draw them in pen & ink. It took loads of practice & I tore up lots, but eventually I got some in a quirky, modern style which I like. I had it made up into cards and they're selling around town. To make a profit you need to buy 1,000 because the price is then 33p each, then you have to buy envelopes & plastic thingies on tip & each unit will only sell for £1.15 wholesale. At £240 per 1,000 printed I've got a long way to go till I break even! I enjoy it though.

But there's only one problem. The printers will only work from a PDF file. We scanned the pix in which was fine in Publisher but because I use text on the card to write bits of history as soon as we changed it to PDF it lost it's formatting and came up with a horrid text. At first I did find a printer that scanned it all in seperatly and added text for me because he has microsoft illustrator, but he seems to be getting less interested in doing it now. He's often busy & grumpy with me. I just wondered does anyone have any ideas of ways around it other than buy Illustrator myself? Someone told me about some free software, but I'm just not that tecchie and it looks difficult.

I sell about 6 a week and 10% of profits I donate to the william morris craft fund so they can train new craftspeople, because I think it's the right thing to do, but it ain't no get rich quick scheme (or even get rich slowly scheme)!

Thanks loads for your help, Lynne

officeguru

Are you sure it is not ADOBE illustrator?

lavenderlass

officeguru wrote: »

Are you sure it is not ADOBE illustrator?

Oooops, it probably is adobe come to think of it! But that's about all I know about it!

I'd be really grateful for any help on where you go to try or buy software when you don't really know much about it, as I've just proved I don't!

Thanks, Lynne

officeguru

It's a pretty expensive package.... Is it possible that it might be a lot cheaper to buy a different printer that would print microsoft publisher... I mean printers have come down a lot in recent years... Your other option is to get a student's copy if you know anyone who attends school... see 'software4students' and there are a couple of other software for students sites... where you could save 80% of the cost but you still might be cheaper with a different printer.... Your other option is a pirated copy but you could get infected with trojans and viruses and I wouldn't recommend that...

I might have an old copy of Illustrator in my cupboard - I could have a rake tomorrow if you don't get any joy from any other poster... You could pm me tomorrow if you don't have any luck...

I hope this helps....

santer_2

Which printer have you got?

Have you looked at adding text with paint

http://www.getpaint.net/

Irfanview with the plug ins is useful for viewing and printing

http://www.irfanview.com/

This is neat for adding effects to images, though choose custom install and untick the toolbars etc

http://www.fotosketcher.com/

Farway

Have you tried, after scanning the picture, using Microsoft Word & not Publisher for the layout?

There are many free Word to PDF converters around, just Google free pdf converter or similar terms

You may have to fiddle around to get the layout & size for your cards in Word, but once done should work, I hope

PS, the pdf converters may even convert from Publisher, but never tried that method

Basically, after the finished document is ready, you select Print, but choose the pdf converter & not your printer, the rest is automatic

peteb23

I'm assuming that you are scanning in the image and then adding some text over it in publisher, is that correct?

If the text formatting is horrible then it could be down to the fact that the printer does not have the same font you are using. You could try to send him the font (you may need to license the font i.e. pay for it) to see if that helps or use font that you know they have.

Alternatively, could you handwrite the text straight on the image (or print it out on some acetate) prior to scanning in? It would all then just be an image.