Is there a standard for line weight use in printed work?
While working on my portfolio I find myself wondering what line weight to use on the countless diagrams, floor plans, sections and so on... I typically use .25 or .5, sometimes I go to smaller weights such as .1 but have had varying results when printing.
I am not able to measure, but it seems like a lot of architectural publications are able to use some pretty thin lines in their drawings and they show up really well. I like to use the smaller lines but worry that once I have an online service such to print, as lulu or blurb, my portfolio they may not show up how I wanted.
Also, a technical question for In design, do you import your line drawings so they are "embedded" in your indesign file, or do you continue to allow indesign to reference the illustrator file placed?
i don't have an exact answer for this, but it really comes down to who your printer is. i have not used the online services you mentioned but you should probably ask them to do some test prints or samples if possible. as you've said, your result will vary.
and as for the indesign question, i'm not sure what you mean by "embedded". i usually allow indesign to reference any file placed as a separate document so you have the option to edit it outside of indesign.
I had the same issue, though I haven't used online printing either. Printing from illustrator can be somewhat problematic if you are doing drawings that contain massive amounts of lines- or so I have found- though in the last scenario i was printing a line drawing with at least 15,000 crosshairs, so i think any program should have had a problem with that. As Nicholas said the problem is the output- I have found it requires a lot of tweaking and test printing- but the results can be so satisfying that it is well worth it. Obviously with line weights as well, it helps to set an ideal print size that your drawing will be optimised to- for example I was doing some 1:25's which were around 2 metres long. The line weights took a while to work out, and were very different when we printed A3 versions which we also needed to do.
Illustrator can definitely do incredibly small line weight, but the problem is the printer- One way of working with it, that is most convenient i think is to make them into pdf from illustrator- save as etc... Occasionally this can bump up the line weights a little if you print directly through a photocopier rather than a resolution set plotter printer, but generally if the result is good, and it is usually a lot faster printing too. (which is important in test printing) and then perhaps the final ones you can print direct from illustrator- or if speed is important then pdf.
As for indesign i guess you are talking about linking. This is perfect with pdf's- just get it to the right size etc, then just print or save the pdf directly over the linked file in the same directory, and it will automatically be reloading the most updated version without you having to do anything. I always link- i'm not sure how else you would do it without copy pasting which i guess would pretty much kill indesign in speed terms because its not well engineered for that....
Hope that helps- if you have the ability to physically test print first, even if its just a sheet of sample line weights, this can be really useful in choosing which weight to use, and whether you can discern any difference between them...
For Indesign, all placed files are automatically linked. You can place .ai, .psd, etc. all directly in. Ctrl-D (Command-D for us macheads), or file>place does the trick. Once it's in, open the links window to view which files are correctly linked and currently uploaded. It's almost exactly like acad xrefs.
On the InDesign front, I make high-res PDFs sized as they will be printed, and update the PDF as necessary. The link is handy.
I agree about a test print. We had an issue at work with a whole bunch of line drawings being litho printed for a book, and it was a giant pain in the ass, because you can go much finer with pure black than % grey, and then there were certain line weights in the 'probably but can't guarantee it' category, and going too heavy would obviously have made the whole thing look like it was drawn in crayon (in the bad sense).
Even if you can get an answer, you end up with the joys of multiplying back and forth between mm and points, for something that's kind of guesswork unless you have a lot of trial and error built up. We ended up building a table of safe values, running a test plate of lines, and then over tea someone would open a magazine and it would start: "WTF? How did they get those superfine lines on that plan? And they're grey? Who's their printer? Why can't we do that?..."
Digital printing (like, I assume, Lulu) is much more forgiving but has its own issues, especially for something double-sided, and you're never going to be guaranteed but allowing time for a proof/test print is the only way you can guarantee quality. If you've been meticulous about your lineweights, you'll need to follow it through to the printing stage so that your work is done justice.
(That all said, I was working between CAD and InDesign, not Illustrator, so I can't specifically answer to that.)
Jan 10, 09 9:04 pm ·
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Lineweight Standards for Line Drawings in Indesign & Illustrator
Is there a standard for line weight use in printed work?
While working on my portfolio I find myself wondering what line weight to use on the countless diagrams, floor plans, sections and so on... I typically use .25 or .5, sometimes I go to smaller weights such as .1 but have had varying results when printing.
I am not able to measure, but it seems like a lot of architectural publications are able to use some pretty thin lines in their drawings and they show up really well. I like to use the smaller lines but worry that once I have an online service such to print, as lulu or blurb, my portfolio they may not show up how I wanted.
Also, a technical question for In design, do you import your line drawings so they are "embedded" in your indesign file, or do you continue to allow indesign to reference the illustrator file placed?
Thanks,
Tyler
i don't have an exact answer for this, but it really comes down to who your printer is. i have not used the online services you mentioned but you should probably ask them to do some test prints or samples if possible. as you've said, your result will vary.
and as for the indesign question, i'm not sure what you mean by "embedded". i usually allow indesign to reference any file placed as a separate document so you have the option to edit it outside of indesign.
I had the same issue, though I haven't used online printing either. Printing from illustrator can be somewhat problematic if you are doing drawings that contain massive amounts of lines- or so I have found- though in the last scenario i was printing a line drawing with at least 15,000 crosshairs, so i think any program should have had a problem with that. As Nicholas said the problem is the output- I have found it requires a lot of tweaking and test printing- but the results can be so satisfying that it is well worth it. Obviously with line weights as well, it helps to set an ideal print size that your drawing will be optimised to- for example I was doing some 1:25's which were around 2 metres long. The line weights took a while to work out, and were very different when we printed A3 versions which we also needed to do.
Illustrator can definitely do incredibly small line weight, but the problem is the printer- One way of working with it, that is most convenient i think is to make them into pdf from illustrator- save as etc... Occasionally this can bump up the line weights a little if you print directly through a photocopier rather than a resolution set plotter printer, but generally if the result is good, and it is usually a lot faster printing too. (which is important in test printing) and then perhaps the final ones you can print direct from illustrator- or if speed is important then pdf.
As for indesign i guess you are talking about linking. This is perfect with pdf's- just get it to the right size etc, then just print or save the pdf directly over the linked file in the same directory, and it will automatically be reloading the most updated version without you having to do anything. I always link- i'm not sure how else you would do it without copy pasting which i guess would pretty much kill indesign in speed terms because its not well engineered for that....
Hope that helps- if you have the ability to physically test print first, even if its just a sheet of sample line weights, this can be really useful in choosing which weight to use, and whether you can discern any difference between them...
For Indesign, all placed files are automatically linked. You can place .ai, .psd, etc. all directly in. Ctrl-D (Command-D for us macheads), or file>place does the trick. Once it's in, open the links window to view which files are correctly linked and currently uploaded. It's almost exactly like acad xrefs.
On the InDesign front, I make high-res PDFs sized as they will be printed, and update the PDF as necessary. The link is handy.
I agree about a test print. We had an issue at work with a whole bunch of line drawings being litho printed for a book, and it was a giant pain in the ass, because you can go much finer with pure black than % grey, and then there were certain line weights in the 'probably but can't guarantee it' category, and going too heavy would obviously have made the whole thing look like it was drawn in crayon (in the bad sense).
Even if you can get an answer, you end up with the joys of multiplying back and forth between mm and points, for something that's kind of guesswork unless you have a lot of trial and error built up. We ended up building a table of safe values, running a test plate of lines, and then over tea someone would open a magazine and it would start: "WTF? How did they get those superfine lines on that plan? And they're grey? Who's their printer? Why can't we do that?..."
Digital printing (like, I assume, Lulu) is much more forgiving but has its own issues, especially for something double-sided, and you're never going to be guaranteed but allowing time for a proof/test print is the only way you can guarantee quality. If you've been meticulous about your lineweights, you'll need to follow it through to the printing stage so that your work is done justice.
(That all said, I was working between CAD and InDesign, not Illustrator, so I can't specifically answer to that.)
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