Yeah, yeah, yeah, green is the new black. So what else is new?

Well, for one thing, the U.S. Post Office is piloting a program allowing consumers postage-free recycling old tech gadgets through the mail.

TigerBytes thinks it’s a great idea!

The other big buzz in the offset industry is the surge of green printing, especially using recycled papers and/or FSC Certified papers.

Don’t be greenwashed into thinking your printer has a real concern for the environment. Make sure they’re walking the walk if they’re talking the talk.

“Heck yes, we’re a green printer. We just ran a direct-mail campaign, sent out half a million postcards!”

Is it just me, or does that carry a heavy load of hypocrisy?

Businesses, and commercial printing is a business, aren’t going to practice environmentally responsible printing practices unless it impacts positively on the bottom line, ie: that it’s good for their business.

When is it good for business?

When the customer demands it! And, many corporations, institutions and non-profits are doing just that.

Here’s linkage to find more info on green printing for color brochures, color flyers, annual reports, color catalogs, digital color printing and FSC Certified printing.

When your fonts suck . . . compressing MAC fonts for your commercial printer.

Your printer (okay, probably not the pressman, more likely your customer service or sales rep) calls and says, “Your fonts suck. They’re no good. They were corrupted when you uploaded them to the FTP site.”

So, you gather them up again, or locate the file you already sent, and you prepare to send them again.

Did I mention your project is Super Rush! Your boss is breathing down your neck and about to burst a major artery? Yeah, like that . . .

So you upload the fonts to the FTP site, again, and of course, you’ve lost a day because you were expecting your proof this morning, not a call that your fonts suck.

Not a dirty look every time your boss sees you doing anything but pushing those fonts over to your commercial printer’s FTP site for your color brochure printing project.

Did I mention you have a color catalog printing project you were supposed to be working on? But, now your Mac is all tied up again uploading fonts?

It’s like a chain of dominoes.

One thing goes wrong, and they all come tumbling down into your lap like concrete bricks. Ouch!

Finally, though, the uploady thingy completes, and your fonts are gone, and Oboy! It’s quitting time.

Yahooty! Happy Hour!

I’m cutting to the chase here because tomorrow you’re going to come to work, hungover, and your boss will be hissing through clenched teeth that the fonts you uploaded yesterday, guess what, they were unuseable, again. Just like the first time you sent them. [Expletive deleted.]

Here’s what’s happening. Mac fonts, unlike PC fonts, come with a data fork and a resource fork. The important Mac font information is in the resource fork, but during file transmission (this includes burning them to a CD or DVD) the resource fork may get lost if:

1) the font is copied to a PC or a PC formatted disk (PC’s don’t use the resource fork.)

2) The font is compressed using the .zip format by Stuffit

3) The font is emailed without being zipped or compressed

Here’s the solution (finally!).

Macintosh OS9 Users: Compress the fonts using Stuffit into a .SIT file before sending or copying to a disk.

Macintosh OSX Users: Compress the fonts by right-clicking (or control-click) the folder with the fonts, then choose “Create Archive” from the contextual menu.

That’s it. Works every time. And you get to be the hero.

Peace.