Blurry Text using Fireworks CS3 version

Question

I'm creating an ad for use in our local phone book yellow
pages using CS3 Fireworks. When I save it in .png or .jpg and print
it out it is very blurry and unacceptable. I made the mistake of
submitting an ad for something else thinking that the pros would be
able to print it out and it would be clear - and it printed
horrible. Why am I unable to print a clear .jpg file?

Answer 1

quote:
Originally posted by:
Champ3708
My canvas size is 288 x 360 pixels; my font sizes range from
9 - 15; I have the print quality set to BEST on a HP5280 and the
properties say the Max Resolution is 1200dpi. I'm really baffled
that this would happen in such a high end software such as
Fireworks CS3 version. How can anyone design anything using fonts
if this happens.
Yep, it's a tiny image. At 1200 dpi a 300-pixel image would
look good at about 1/4 inch. Maybe 1/2 inch, but it'll start to
look kinda blurry. Your printer may not have the same resolution as
the printer the phone book will be printed on, so you need to know
the print shop's recommendations. Then, do some math. If you know
the size in inches you want your advertisement to be, multiply
those dimensions by the dpi to get the dimensions in pixels to make
your Fireworks document. (Ignore the dpi settings in Fireworks.)
You could possibly get by with something half as big, but you
should ask the print shop for recommendations.
Better still is to use Illustrator or another vector drawing
program and submit scalable art in .ai or .eps format. But, again,
check with the print shop for guidelines.