Sometimes the Best Available File Is Still the Right File
Not every legal document comes to print from a clean digital original.
Some pages have been scanned years ago. Others may have come from another party, an older file, a fax, or a document already processed several times before it reaches the final court book.
Last week, we had a good example.
We received a large Book of Documents that looked complete and ready for production. The pagination had been added, the pages were in order, and the file opened normally.
But some of the source pages were noticeably low resolution.
The interesting part was that the page numbers added later were perfectly sharp. That made the softer text and images underneath them much easier to notice.
So before printing the full run, we checked with the law office.
The question was not whether we could improve it
Our first thought was not to try to sharpen or rebuild the pages.
With legal documents, that can be the wrong approach.
The more useful question was simply: is this the best available source?
The law office confirmed these were the files they had received and that no better version was available.
Once we knew that, the production decision became straightforward.
We printed the book as supplied.
A lower-quality page is not always a production error
This comes up more often than people might expect.
A legal file can contain a mixture of:
clean digital documents;
scanned affidavits;
older correspondence;
exhibits;
handwritten material;
screenshots;
photographs;
and pages supplied by other parties.
The quality can vary significantly from one section to another.
That does not automatically mean something has gone wrong in prepress or printing.
Sometimes the source itself is simply limited.
The important part is recognizing the difference before production begins.
When it is worth stopping to ask
In our case, the difference between the sharp pagination and the softer document pages was noticeable enough that we didn't want to assume.
A short confirmation before printing made sense.
For a large legal book, especially one being produced in several copies, it is much better to ask that question before the entire run is printed, collated and bound.
The answer may simply be:
"Yes, that is the best copy we have. Please proceed."
And that is a perfectly workable answer.
What we usually look at
Before producing a large Book of Documents, appeal material or similar legal file, we will often look across different parts of the PDF rather than checking only the first few pages.
That can include:
small text;
signatures;
handwritten notes;
scanned exhibits;
photographs and screenshots;
older correspondence;
pages from different source documents;
and the difference between original content and later-added pagination.
If one section looks noticeably softer than the rest, it is worth understanding why before the job moves too far into production.
Not every imperfect file needs to be fixed
Print production has a natural instinct to make things look better.
Most of the time, that is useful.
Legal documents can be different.
If the best available source is a poor scan, an old exhibit or a file supplied by another party, improving or altering it may not be appropriate.
Sometimes the correct production decision is simply to reproduce the material as supplied.
The important part is knowing that everyone understands what the source looks like before printing begins.
That was the lesson from last week's job.
The file was not perfect. But once the law office confirmed that it was the best source available, it was still the right file to print.
