"camera-ready original"

[Barry Campbell]

On 12/15/06, Susan Hogarth <hogarth at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am writing a proposal and one of the requirements in the statement
> of work is to provide: "a camera-ready original and electronic copy on
> computer disk".
>
> I'm afraid I am almost completely a product of the digital age. I see
> this phrase ("camera ready") often and have only a very vague idea of
> what it means. Is it just a really clean copy on good paper? Should I
> describe the paper, the dpi, etc?

If the question period isn't over, call the issuer of the SOW and ask
what they need for a "camera-ready original."  Back in the day when a
lot of manual pasteup went on in the pre-press process, "camera-ready
copy" meant a clean manuscript ready for the printer to photograph,
with no additional work necessary, so a very nice clean copy (black
type on white paper) should actually meet the requirement.

The thing is, though, chances are it's leftover boilerplate language
that no one has looked at in years and they have absolutely no use for
a "camera-ready original" in print; I haven't sent a printer anything
other than a print-ready PDF in so long that I barely remember doing
it any other way.

- bc

-- 
Barry Campbell -- <barry.campbell at gmail.com>
Blog: http://campbell-online.com