Fuzzy fonts are unflattering to say the least! So why does this happen you wonder? Well the main reason it happens is because you have sent a JPG to your printer to be printed instead of a file that can hold the fonts separate from the background like a .pdf.ai.ind and a few others. When you send through a JPG to be printed its is just one layer, meaning your background image and your fonts are all together in one image, flattened and this causes the edges of your fonts to be fuzzy instead of crispy clear.
I’m going to take your though the process of getting your file print-ready and without fuzz using Photoshop and Illustrator. In this tutorial i am going to assume you already have some artwork ( that is not flattened ) that has text in it. So lets get started.
Step 1. Open your document in Photoshop and if you haven’t already then convert it to CYMK by clicking on Image/Mode then selecting CYMK from the list. ( If you didn’t know already then all printed documents should be CYMK not the default RGB)
Step 2. Now select all the layers in your Photoshop document that are not fonts, then right click on them all while they are selected and click “merge layers” ( Note if you have effects on any of your fonts- such as drop shadow or any kind of layer effect you will need to merge them into the background as well). You should now only have one background image then the rest of the layers are fonts. If this is what you have then save and close photoshop.
Step 3. Open Illustrator and then open your document, a window will labeled “Photoshop Import Options”. From this window select “Convert Layers to Objects” then click “OK”.
Step 4. Now for the important part, this is the bit that kills fuzz dead in its tracks. Looking at the artboard click ctrl+a ( or command+a on mac ) and you will see that then entire document is selected now ( you will notice different parts of your document are highlighted with different bounding boxes ). From the menu at the top of the screen click “Type” then click “Create Outlines” and you will see that your fonts are now outlined This means instead of your fonts being fuzzy pixels like your background image, your fonts are now vector and will print perfect )
I hope this helps as i know how infuriating it can be to wasted money on having something printed looks fuzzy and unprofessional, I myself unfortunately did it quite a few times until I worked out what my printer meant when they said to outline my fonts, it was all quite new and confusing to me.
Step 5. You can now go a head and save your document as a PDF and send it to your printer in confidence that it will print fine
