Open your Quark document and make sure that the page size is the desired size of your postcard. You do not need to create bleeds for the postcard. Also check and make sure that all of your critical items are at least 1/8” away from the edge so that they are not trimmed off.
Go under File menu and select “Save Page as EPS” and Quark will give you an option for naming your page. If you have two pages in your document, save Page 1 as one file and Page 2 as a second file. These files should be named either “front.eps” or “back.eps”. Keep the scale at 100%, the format as color, the preview as PICT and the data as binary. Set the bleed to 0 inches. Save these files in a working folder on your computer. Make sure that all of your placed images are correctly linked and that all of these images are the correct resolution and are saved as CMYK files. If you use an embedded RGB image, it is likely to print incorrectly and/or provide unpleasant color results.

Several things don’t are problematic when exporting from Quark. If you are using a text box with a color of none or utilizing the blend feature in Quark, you may wind up with unwanted results once the file is converted. When using type in Quark the “styles” applied inside of Quark do not remain when the file is sent to postscript. In addition, any tinting or colorizing features may be lost during the conversion process. It is very importatn to double check and make sure that any WHITE text is not set to overprint. Sometimes white text is copied and pasted from another part of the document and keeps a trapping preference for overprint. You can check this by selecting the “trap information” under the View menu.

For any black graphical element or for black text infont sizes larger than 14 point, we need a Rich Black. Rather than using a single color/greyscale black, make sure that you are using the following mix in your color pallette: 40 Cyan, 30 Magenta, 20 Yellow, and 100 Black.

Illustrator 9/10 allows you to layer transparent elements over one another, mixing colors and shapes. This looks great onscreen, but creates very complex postscript when it actually goes to press, and will crash any "rip" that does not support Postscript Level 3 (including ours). Since upgrades to a rip are extremely expensive, most printers do not support transparencies at this time. Workaround: If you have created a design using transparencies, save your file, open file in Photoshop, and rasterize at 300 dpi. This should maintain your image's appearance, while avoiding postscript altogether.

Sometimes when fonts are truetype they will not convert to outline in Illustrator. After you convert your fonts to outline, select all (Command-A/ Mac or Control-A/Win) and zoom in to look at your fonts. If they have an "underline" below the letter, the font did not convert to outline. If there is a series of dots and a path that looks like the shape of the letter then it has converted to outline. If you have a truetype font, you will need to look for a postscript version of the font. A good place to try is www.adobe.com. Many of the fonts that come with your computer may be truetype and cannot be used for printing.

If using layers, please flatten before submitting. Do a final run-through, run the Object:Path:Clean Up... Filter, make sure everything is in CMYK and that larger black elements are Rich Black. Save as an Illustrator EPS, making sure that in the following screen Compatibility is Version 8, Preview format is Macintosh, and Options are all checked (except Japanese File Format). Be sure CMYK Postscript is checked, with Level 2 as the Postscript Selection. If Transparency is available, Preserve Appearance should be selected. Note that saving down to Illustrator 8 will destroy any transparency, but will ensure that your file will be printable. If you are concerned, open your newly saved eps file in Illustrator and make sure that it looks all right. If not, you may want to consider rasterizing your file in Photoshop and saving it out as a Tiff.

If you do not have Illustrator, you can also open this file in Photoshop and rasterize the file. Make sure to rasterize at a 300dpi resolution and save the file as a Photoshop TIF or EPS format.