Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 4/4/2008

Question
I have designed a business card, which is 3.5"x2". The printer wants 1/16" bleed and the file at 300dpi, so my final size is 1088px by 638px. I used these values in the document setup/Artboard/Size. So far so good, but when I send the page to my draft (letter sized) printer, the card fills more than the page. When I go to File/Document Setup/Artboard, I see that when I change the custom size of the Artboard to predefined size Letter, it shows up as 792px by 612px, which means that the dpi for the file is only 72 dpi. Where do I set the resolution?

Thanks

Answer
Hi Richard,

There are no settings for resolution in Illustrator. It is a vector program, not a raster program.

You need to stop thinking in pixels when working in Illustrator and change your units of measure to inches (or metric) and work from that perspective. Changing the size of your artboard in pixels does not change a resolution setting like in Photoshop. The two are completely different.

Also when you print, make sure that you do not have fit to page selected.

Thanks

Kevin