I am preparing CD artwork and publicity artwork for printers and am completely bamboozled by their requirements. I have yet to speak to a printer who talks a language I understand, so am turning to Mudcatters in the hope of finding someone who can give me the information I need.

In particular:

1. What are 'flattened formats'? How do I save work in a flattened format? If I do my work in Publisher then save as a pdf, is it automatically flattened?

2. How do I save pictures as CMYK, as printers require?

3. I have the free Adobe reader everyone has. To use printers' templates, I need Adobe writer, which is very expensive and I am only likely to use it this once. Is there a cheap (or, even better, free) alternative that does the job?

If there's anything else I need to know, please do tell me. But please be gentle - I am no PC techie, I just want to get my artwork published.

Thanks.

Stower