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Production Guidelines for B&W Newspaper Ads
Overview | Production Guidelines | Distiller Settings | Submission Checklist
Electronic submission of black and white material is preferred and encouraged through transmission of industry standard PDF files.
The following standards are for black and white newspaper ads and should serve as a guide only. Every continuous tone or half tone image should be evaluated on an individual basis with an expected dot gain of approximately 26% in the 50% dot area.
Dot gain curves are non-linear; ads will gain more in their mid-tone values than the highlight or shadow.
All continuous tone images should be at least 170 ppi at their final output size. Line art should be at 1016 ppi.
All ads supplied to The New York Times should have a minimum of 5% in the highlight and a maximum of 80% in the shadow area. Any part of the ad not intended to print solid black should be created at a maximum of 87%.
A minimum of 20% contrast between foreground and background is recommended.
Type should be kept at a minimum of 6 point for standard or 10 point for reverse. All type intended to print solid black should be set at a 100% black. Surprinted type should be solid black and contrasted against 30% black screen or less. Reverse or knockout type should be 0% (white) type on a 70% screen or higher. Fine serif typefaces should be avoided.
Ads will be reduced by 2% when printed.
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