I can only imagine how many people have gotten a call from a printers graphics department on a project that's already late. "Your file won't color separate, so it's going to be late" they say. Well, here's what the heck they are talking about!

So you've made a neato blue and black bookmark in MS Word, looks great, prints great on your laser printer, and you get the price for 10,000 of the buggers in 2 colors (blue and black lets say).

When artwork goes to press, "plates" are made. Think of these as a sort of thin "rubber stamp" if you will, with an area etched on them that ink really sticks to.

So for your 2 color bookmark, two plates are made, one "rubber stamp" for the blue ink, and one for the black ink. This in a nutshell is color separation, the separating of a color document, such that only 1 color appears on each "plate".

How can you test if your document will "color separate"? Is there anything in your "print setup" about separations? If you can't simulate two pages coming out of your laser printer - one for each color, expect a call from the print shop. At the very least the graphics department will have to tweak your file or even re-creating it which isn't all that unusual - but does cost to make it right.

So what do you do? If you are constantly trying to do 2/3 color print jobs, I'd recommend hiring a professional graphic artist, or if you really really want to do it yourself (and you have lots of time) - plunk down the money for the proper software. Adobe's Creative Suite will enable you to do everything. While the learning curve is steep, and there aren't "wizards" to guide you through anything, it has all the tools you need. MS Publisher can do color separations too, and many professionals cringe at my mention of it, but I've seen it work great, ...and I have seen it really cause some big dollar screw ups.... use with caution, and as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.