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How to print 11×17 on the Phaser 7760 from Adobe programs:
1) Go to File>Print
2) Select the Phaser 7760DN PS from the dropdown list
3) Press the Setup button in the Adobe dialog.
4) Press the preferences button in the Windows dialog
5) In the Paper dropdown list select Other Size…
6) Set the Original Document Size to Tabloid (11×17″)
7) Set the Output Paper Size to Tabloid (11×17″) if it hasn’t already been updated
8) Select OK in the Print Preferences dialog
9) Select Print in the Windows Print dialog. Don’t worry, your document won’t print yet.
10) If all your settings are correct in the Adobe dialog, select print to actually start the print process.
Be careful with live trace. It’s usually not the answer you’re looking for.
Live trace converts raster artwork into vector artwork using myriad parameters that are left relatively unexplained by Adobe programmers. In general, try to avoid using it. We used it in the first lab because we didn’t have a choice – we didn’t have the original source of the land use areas. Had we had those areas as vector features in ArcMap we would have wanted to export them as vectors and skip the entire raster-vector conversion process entirely.
In most cases you will want to keep raster information as raster. Don’t even consider trying to convert a hillshade or satellite photo to vector. Those data are continuous fields and are best represented by a raster graphic. If you want to edit how these look you can either change their symbology in ArcMap before exporting, or edit them in Photoshop.
We won’t be teaching Photoshop until the second half of the semester, so if you want to play around with it I suggest checking out the help documents:
http://www.adobe.com/support/photoshop/
The North American Cartographic Information Society (http://nacis.org/index.cfm?x=1) is a great resource for both technical support and design inspiration. They operate a forum called CartoTalk (http://www.cartotalk.com/) where professional cartographers discuss solutions to common (and not so common) problems involved with map design. The NACIS website also has a great list of professional cartographers with links to their websites which often include online portfolios (http://nacis.org/index.cfm?x=16). These examples are great sources for design inspiration.
A portfolio I often find myself referring to is that of Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso, who runs his own cartography firm, Kelso Cartography (http://kelsocartography.com/index.html), and is the staff cartographer for the Washington Post. Because of his newspaper presence his work is published very frequently and he often works on a tight deadline. He has developed a number of tools to help him work efficiently in ArcMap and Adobe Illustrator which he generously posts online for the cartography community to make use of (he is also a frequent poster on the CartoTalk forum). Kelso’s print portfolio, including material for the newspaper and other print media, is available here: http://portfolio.kelsocartography.com/. His interactive map portfolio (most examples use Adobe Flash) is available here: http://kelsocartography.com/interactive/.
If you’re having trouble with clipping masks:
1) make sure your intended clipping mask is a single path and is not in a sublayer of its own
2) your intended clipping mask should be in the same layer as the objects you want to clip
3) your intended clipping mask should be the top object in this layer
4) to make the clipping mask select all objects, including your intended mask, and select Object > Clipping Mask > Make. It may be easiest to select all objects in a given layer by clicking on the circular selection button to the right of the layer name.
If you’re still having trouble, check out http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Illustrator/14.0/WS714a382cdf7d304e7e07d0100196cbc5f-644aa.html