For various reasons, I’m often asked for an AI or (more often) an EPS on various projects. The files I provide for nearly all print work (including screen printing, embroidery, and packaging) is a PDF.

Why? If it’s an easy fix, can’t you just turn it into X?

Yes, of course. However, files are often being changed right up until the last minute. If every file needs to be saved in various formats, then there is 1) the Illustrator or InDesign CS4 files we’re working on; 2) the PDFs we give to the client so that the client can view it; and 3) the X format you need it in*.

*X format is different for every printer, which complicates things further.

Basically, while it is relatively quick to save files in various formats, it does take time (which costs your client money) and it introduces a higher chance of errors when we are making several quick changes. If you get a PDF, then you and the client are looking at the exact same file, which minimizes errors and miscommunication.

Also — and just as importantly — a lot of the files printers ask for will actually hurt the quality of the artwork.

A PDF is better than an EPS or AI anyway.

It’s a cleaner file with more options for editing. Really. If you don’t know this already, and don’t trust us, then more info can be found here:
http://rwillustrator.blogspot.com/2006/11/whats-in-file.html

At the end of the day, yes, I can provide you with any file format you want. But we want our clients to understand that an EPS is quickly becoming a deprecated file format, a PDF has more options, is oftentimes smaller, can be viewed accurately by anyone, and doesn’t have a lot of the baggage of an EPS.

Will you outline the fonts?

Lately, another request has begun to surface… “Can you outline the fonts?”. Once again, of course, but I don’t want to. When you outline fonts you can “thicken” the glyph as well as lose your hinting. This is fairly advanced typography, but the gist of it is that if you’re printing at lower than 2400 dpi (and almost all the printers who ask for this are printing lower than that), you will see a noticeable degradation in quality by “outlining” your fonts.

There’s no need to anyway, fonts are embedded into a PDF (more explanation here)and if you’re not trying to pull this into Illustrator, you don’t need the fonts anyway.

The one exception to this is logos. Most of the time, a logo’s font is outlined.