creating logo in Word

[Guest]

I am trying to duplicate our company logo in Word in our letterhead--it
consists of colored squares and some verbiage, including the company name.
The colored squares are easy, but I cannot figure out how to get a "picture"
of the type for the company name. The type face is Adobe Garamond SemiBold,
which no one else will have on their computer (either co-workers or clients),
and so I currently have a GIF file with a transparent background (the name
floats partially over a colored square). However, when in the form of a GIF
file, the name blurs badly on screen when we make PDFs. I have not been able
to find a way to make a higher-resolution JPG file with a transparent
background (using Photoshop). Is there any way to take this typeface and make
it some sort of Word object that won't change on someone else's computer but
will keep it's sharp edges in a PDF?

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Hello Sam

I am trying to duplicate our company logo in Word in our letterhead--it
consists of colored squares and some verbiage, including the company name.
The colored squares are easy, but I cannot figure out how to get a "picture"
of the type for the company name. The type face is Adobe Garamond SemiBold,
which no one else will have on their computer (either co-workers or clients),

then your task has instantaneously become almost futile!

Let's face it: if your "Corporate Identity" demands Adobe Garamond
SemiBold, and you don't have that font, and you don't have a
vector-format file of the complete logo (EPS, EMF), or a very
high-resolution bitmap file (can generally be anything like TIFF, BMP,
GIF), and you have no decent vector graphic tools at hand -- please have
a talk with whoever gave you that task!

and so I currently have a GIF file with a transparent background (the name
floats partially over a colored square). However, when in the form of a GIF
file, the name blurs badly on screen when we make PDFs.

If it's OK while in Word, but blurry in PDF, this mostly means your PDF
creation software (or its settings) are not up to the task.

I have not been able
to find a way to make a higher-resolution JPG file with a transparent
background (using Photoshop).

Forget JPEG: it presents no advantage and many disadvantages (it usually
compresses with loss, great for saving size almost w/o notice when
dealing with photographs, very _bad_ choice for vector graphics) for
your job at hand.

Is there any way to take this typeface and make
it some sort of Word object that won't change on someone else's computer but
will keep it's sharp edges in a PDF?

See above: first check your PDF creation software and it's settings.
Sounds like its downsampling your image.

HTH
Robert

 

[Guest]

Hi Robert -- Thanks very much for responding! We're still working on this
problem. My responses embedded below.

Hello Sam


then your task has instantaneously become almost futile!

Let's face it: if your "Corporate Identity" demands Adobe Garamond
SemiBold, and you don't have that font, and you don't have a
vector-format file of the complete logo (EPS, EMF), or a very
high-resolution bitmap file (can generally be anything like TIFF, BMP,
GIF), and you have no decent vector graphic tools at hand -- please have
a talk with whoever gave you that task!
-----------------------------------------------

We're a very small company (under 20), so we gave ourselves this task
We have the SemiBold font, but our clients won't. We send out a lot of
proposals in Word with our logo or letterhead, to other companies who then
fold our info into theirs, so we are trying to make a high resolution
TIFF/GIF ourselves, but with a transparent background.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's OK while in Word, but blurry in PDF, this mostly means your PDF
creation software (or its settings) are not up to the task.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
I tried upping the resolution as much as I could when I made a pdf, but it
didn't change anything. But I didn't do anything with the sampling options.
Although... the other companies who fold in our materials will probably just
use default settings to make a pdf, so we're hoping to get something that
will be sharp and clear under those circumstances. (We really didn't expect
it to be this hard.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Forget JPEG: it presents no advantage and many disadvantages (it usually
compresses with loss, great for saving size almost w/o notice when
dealing with photographs, very _bad_ choice for vector graphics) for
your job at hand.

------------------------------------------------------------
Very happy to forget about JPEGs. But which other format would be best? I
tried to make a TIFF in Photoshop with a transparent background, but it
turned into a black square when I imported it into Word. Am in the process
of asking some Photoshop people now...
----------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

We're a very small company (under 20), so we gave ourselves this task
We have the SemiBold font, but our clients won't. We send out a lot of
proposals in Word with our logo or letterhead, to other companies who then
fold our info into theirs, so we are trying to make a high resolution
TIFF/GIF ourselves, but with a transparent background.

always hard to guarantee anything out-of-house (it's hard enough
in-house ). I'd try creating a WMF/EMF file (vector graphic
information) with your logo, that might be best.

Very happy to forget about JPEGs. But which other format would be best? I
tried to make a TIFF in Photoshop with a transparent background, but it
turned into a black square when I imported it into Word. Am in the process
of asking some Photoshop people now...

Yes, never wrong to ask some graphic experts. GIF can have a transparent
color as well (though not too many colors, but this shouldn't be an
issue), give that a shot.

Greetings
Robert

 

[Guest]

Thanks, Robert, for your help. We'll look into some vector graphic stuff. We
figure there HAS to be a way to do this seemingly rather simple task. We've
given up on trying to control color out of house, but we thought we should be
able to better control a picture of plain black text... Thanks again!

 

[Cardlaw]

Buy a copy of Adobe Illustrator, and use it to autotrace the letters you
want to include in the logo; turn the letters into vector art, such as
eps.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for responding--we'll keep this idea in mind as a possible solution!

 

[Robert M. Franz (RMF)]

Buy a copy of Adobe Illustrator, and use it to autotrace the letters you
want to include in the logo; turn the letters into vector art, such as
eps.

EPS is always nice, but you need a PS printer driver (when printing
through most Office apps, in any rate). Otherwise, the app is using a
TIFF preview (if it's present in the EPS in the first place).

2cents
Robert