the joys of printing projects

You have been working hard on a project and you think you have all the tweaks figured out. You have had numerous critiques, revisions, and your project seems to look perfect, on the screen. Then you press print on your computer mere hours before you are to present. You pick up the finished page and it doesn't look anything like the screen version. You then spend the next few hours trying to figure out how in the world to fix your printing error.

For some reason, there always seems to be printing problems, no matter how much you prepare for them. I have done many print media projects that didn't turn out to look anything like I pictured on a computer screen. This happened to me only last week. I had an advertising portfolio due on Wednesday. I had all the pages created saved in the correct format, etc. on Tuesday night. I thought all I had to do was to print. Unfortunately, my first print attempt turned disasterous and I ended up spending six hours of time fixing it. Six hours, of which, I was supposed to be working. Oops. I will never print the same day a project is due again and I would suggest to print the day before to anyone else. It just makes life so much easier.