Home > Support > File Specifications

Note: For the Bureau Service, all files can be uploaded via our file upload facility (new customers click here and existing customers click here), our FTP server (please apply for your personal login details), or alternatively sent on CD in the post.

The following information is the desired specifications for your files. If you cannot provide your files to these specifications, contact us for further help.

PDF's

Wherever possible, please provide your publication as a single PDF file with the following settings:

• All pages in a single PDF file, with the pages in order
• Single pages (not double page spreads)
• 200 DPI (or greater)
• Cropped to exact art size (no need for cropmarks/bleed etc, as it is not a traditional print process)
• Embedded fonts (not subset, please avoid CID Type H encoded fonts)

Flash

Flash files will be presented on a layer above your existing pages, so therefore, please bear in mind the following notes:

• We can accept animations in Flash 8 or earlier. We will need .swf and .fla files supplied.
• Please design your files so that a single .swf file is needed to play the animation, and not multiple .swfs and/or .as files
• We do not support animations created using SWiSH
• Please make sure there is no white space around the edge of the flash animation
• Please note that your animation will be sitting inside another flash application, and as such, the background colour defined in the property inspector will turn transparent, and show the PDF content underneath your flash files. To avoid this, put a single colour object on the lowest layer of your flash file to form a canvas.
• Please set your flash files to a frame rate of 24fps
• Avoid any Actionscript that can affect the host application, such as _level0, _root, and _parent references, or global functions like setTimeinterval
• There should be no links in the animation we are given, unless this is necessary, as these links will not be picked up in the statistics package. We will normally create the links overlaying the flash, so that they can be tracked
• There is no file size limit on animations, but for loading purposes, the files should be as small as possible
• Images should be set to lossless compression instead of photo compression
• Filenames for Flash animation files (SWFs) should not include special characters such as brackets, question marks, commas and spaces. Underscore characters are ok to use
• In case we need to edit your FLA file, please use one of the following options when dealing with fonts:
  - Add the font in the FLA library and then use the reference of the font in the scene and not the font directly
  - Provide the fonts along with the FLA file
  - Convert the fonts to vector shapes, such that there are no non-system fonts within the Flash file

Video

Please provide video files in Flash 8 FLV or alternatively, Quicktime format. For best results, use resolutions between 320 x 240 to 640 x 480. If you cannot supply FLV files, we will convert these files to FLV format, with default play controls when you hover over the video (videos will autoplay when the reader turns to that page).

Audio

Please supply all music or audio as MP3 files.