help with open office graphics

nbrome

Bear with me and read this as though written by a 5-year-old (yes, I know a 5-year-old would know more than me) and reply in the same vein.
I'm planning to give 50-page paper folders to each of my four grown children showing the things they did together when they were little. It's a gift, hence I can't ask any of them for help.
I have Open Office on my pc. I've been having a great old time learning how to use it: putting images on, changing size and position, sometimes putting five or six reduced-size photos on one page, putting in notes and captions etc. I was feeling extremely proud of myself.
Then I took about 30 pages to a printshop and the people there were politely horrified that I had use OO for the job. They did print them out but the whole process took well over an hour. As I would have to do 50 pages four times over I realised I would have to change something.
I put one page in PDF (still on OO) and took that in. They said it was still too heavy (7MB) and suggested I reduce the resolution. I've messed about with this and gone down from 300 to 75 resolution. But will this come out too blurred?
I really can't give up on this project now as I've put so much into it. What should I do?

mordeith

nbrome wrote: »

Then I took about 30 pages to a printshop and the people there were politely horrified that I had use OO for the job. They did print them out but the whole process took well over an hour. As I would have to do 50 pages four times over I realised I would have to change something.
I put one page in PDF (still on OO) and took that in. They said it was still too heavy (7MB) and suggested I reduce the resolution. I've messed about with this and gone down from 300 to 75 resolution. But will this come out too blurred?
I really can't give up on this project now as I've put so much into it. What should I do?

To be honest think you should go to a different print shop.
First things first though, are the original images you used scans? If so then retain the original scan quality. If you reduce to 72dpi then the resulting print will be poor unless the physical size is pretty small.
I can't see why the shop would consider a 7mb file 'too heavy'. Are you getting the images printed onto photopaper or just ordinary A4 office paper. If the latter you could buy yourself a printer and do it at home yourself.

nbrome

Thanks for the reply. Yes, the pages in question were scans. I saved them all and then worked in Open Office Drawing. I reduced a number of them which were on the same theme eg dressing up, playing house etc and put them on one new page with captions. Looking at one of these pages it tells me the size is 1,039 KB.
This is the kind of page which was taking ages to print at the shop - I hung around at the beginning but then went shopping and came back and they were still doing the 30 pages.
Someone suggested PDF and, as I said, I tried this with the page cited above. The 300 dpi size is 7.85 MB, I was told it would still take too long to print.
And yes, I'm just printing on A4 office paper. Apart from the fact that I'm 'working in secret', we have a printer that eats up ink, and my idea was to consider the printing costs as part of the joy of giving the gift!
However, regarding your first suggestion.....I think I'll give that a go today. I'll let you know.

mordeith

nbrome wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. Yes, the pages in question were scans. I saved them all and then worked in Open Office Drawing. I reduced a number of them which were on the same theme eg dressing up, playing house etc and put them on one new page with captions. Looking at one of these pages it tells me the size is 1,039 KB.
This is the kind of page which was taking ages to print at the shop - I hung around at the beginning but then went shopping and came back and they were still doing the 30 pages.
Someone suggested PDF and, as I said, I tried this with the page cited above. The 300 dpi size is 7.85 MB, I was told it would still take too long to print.
And yes, I'm just printing on A4 office paper. Apart from the fact that I'm 'working in secret', we have a printer that eats up ink, and my idea was to consider the printing costs as part of the joy of giving the gift!
However, regarding your first suggestion.....I think I'll give that a go today. I'll let you know.

If I was you I'd save all the pages as PDFs, bung em on a USB stick and head to your nearest library. You can print them off there from their public computers. Having said that, you might want to check the price per A4 copy first as some libraries can charge 50c per page (which is a bit much IMO).

nbrome

Well, I'm in Rome and we don't have public libraries where you can print your own stuff.
I had asked beforehand how much it would cost and 50c seems to be the going rate, so I'm not floored by that. If I did it at home I would have to replace the ink several times.
Anyway, I'm off to see if other shops have the same problem as the first!

mordeith

nbrome wrote: »

Well, I'm in Rome and we don't have public libraries where you can print your own stuff.
I had asked beforehand how much it would cost and 50c seems to be the going rate, so I'm not floored by that. If I did it at home I would have to replace the ink several times.
Anyway, I'm off to see if other shops have the same problem as the first!

Ah right. How about an internet café