We usually print the generic calendars sometime in Tammuz. Until we begin printing, you can change the quantity of your order as you wish. Once the "shells" have been printed, we cannot guarantee that we'll be able to satisfy an increase in your order quantity; We reserve the right to bill you for the cost price of the printing if you decrease the quantity and we cannot find another customer to purchase them by the end of the season.
Any other changes to your order can be made even later, until the time that your order have been submitted to print.
All changes to your orders must be made directly on the customer-service website, and are not considered approved until the confirmation email shows up in your inbox.
Changes to your shipping options, mailing preferences, and your user profile can all be made online at our customer-service website.
If you miss the weekly submitting deadline, your calendars will still be printed. If the delay is not very substantial, it is sometimes possible to stil linclude your job in the scheduled weekly batch. If not, your calendars will simply join the next printing run and the expected shipping date will be pushed ahead by one week.
We do accept all major cards for payment. Our credit-cards are usually processed by "The Printhouse". We reserve the right to add a convenience fee of 2.5% should we have to process the credit cards ourselves (this is usually not an issue until very late in the calendar season). US-based customers who apply for "self-service pricing" must use EFT/Drafts only.
While our project is geared primarily toward helping Shluchim, we will gladly print calendars for non-Chabad institutions, provided that that this project - as well as their work in general - does not negatively impact the work of the local Chabad-Lubavitch institutions.
If you are not registered in the official Merkos directory of Shluchim, we will require a letter from the regional Shliach endorsing this project.
A letter from the Vaad Rabonei Lubavitch (or your regional Lubavticher Beis-Din) endorsing your institution may also work, if we have no reason to believe this will hurt the offically recognized Shliach.
Small calendar: The ad strip is 2" high and 11" wide. After leaving space for margins etc., you can sell three sizes:
Large calendar:
Large calendar: 1.5" H by approx. 1.75" W
Small calendar: 1.5" H by 1.5" W
(There can be as many as six empty spaces in a strip. There are no grid lines dividing them. Multiply the width by the number of empty dates on any given month).
We work with a mailing house in Lakeood, NJ, to have your calendars mailed directly to your mailing list, saving you the extra shipping costs and the hassle of preparing the mail yourself.
There is a $25 setup fee, plus $.085 per piece ($.135 per piece for those pieces which are too few for the zipcode to fill the sack; typically less than 10% of the mailing). This is in addition to the cost of actual postage. Any leftover calendars will be shipped directly to you.
Keep in mind that the mailer charges an extra $25 if more than one box was left over after the mailing was done. When giving us your shipping instructions, you can choose to break up the shipment so that only the right quantity is shipped directly to the mailer.
If it's your first time mailing from NJ, you will have to supply us with your nonprofit authorization number (not to be confused with your permit number) so that we can make the nonprofit rates available there as well. Make sure the name and return-address on your calendar match the ones on file with the Post Office.
We will deal with the mailer directly, and you will upload the list, receive updates, and be billed directly fromus. However, we wish to emphasize that we don’t take responsibility for the the mailer’s work (quality, turnaround, etc.). We make no pomises regarding turnaround time,, both by the mailing house and by the post office. We also cannot gurantee you will be approved for nonprofit rates. It is your responsibility to make sure that your account with the post office, as well as the layout of the calendar, meet their eligibility guidelines for nonprofit rates.
As an alternative, we can also deliver your order for you, free of charge, to Star Mailing in Brooklyn. You will have to make the mailing arrangments directly with them.
Actual postage rate varies based on the makeup of your mailing list. The rates have have changed for 2012. The following rates are based on a smaller calendar, with an envelope but without any insrts. The weight was 4.2 ounces. This was a year-old calendar; a new calendar weights slightly more.
Per piece rates:
If you have extra page inserts, the costs go up slightly. Larger calendars cost more.
DSCF rates are significantly cheaper. If you have a larger mailing, it may be worth your while to travel to where those rates will be availabel to you.
Mrs. Ella Vorovich of www.vepgraphics.com (905-918-0515) is available to help you put together the calendar at rates which are usually less than what you'd pay your own graphic designer. Her fees begin at $400 for simple jobs. Mrs. Vorovich is a Shlucha herself and works with many Shluchim throughout the year.
Please note that you would work with her directly - we take no responsibility for her work. You will be required to approve the files on our site after they have been uploaded by her staff.
Most people will be able to provide you with a digital copy of their business card or ad, which is always best. If they can't, and if the business card contains simple text, it's probably best to just retype it yourself, as scanned text never looks as good as the original. If it contains a logo, you still can retype the text portion making it look much better.
If you must scan a business card, it might be wise for you to bring them all to a service such as Kinko's to scan them professionally. If you have to scan it yourself, make sure to scan it at a resolution of 300DPI (Dots Per Inch). In addition to the resolution, there are other settings on your scanner's software that you'll need to play around with to get the best image possible.
Check and double-check to make sure the scanned images are straight. You can straighten them by rotating them slightly with your software as needed. Tip: Business cards will often have a border, or the scans will often show the edges as lines. Use your software to crop those lines, straighten the image by rotating it as needed, and then create a separete rectangle as a (straight) border. For best results, make all borders at least 1.5 points thick.
If you're using QuarkXpress or InDesign, you can have your ads sent to you in PDF format. The advantage of this format is that the clarity of the text is never degraded. Make sure they create the PDF using the "Professional" (high-resolution, fonts included) setting.
Microsoft Publisher does not read PDF files, but you can have your advertisers save them in EPS format, which is essentially the same thing and which Publisher can read, too.
If you advertiser does not have that capability, have them save it in TIFF (or if need be, in JPEG) format. In either case, make sure they save as high resolution graphics (300 DPI).
Tip: The DPI changes as you resize the image. For example: A large logo created at 150DPI will look just fine when reduced to fit into a business card.
Tip: Do not just copy & paste an image from a PDF file into your desktop Publisher. Quite often you'll be left with a low resolution image which may look good on screen, but will look quite different in print. If you aren't sure, print it on your office printer to check the quality. Alternatively, you can get a sense of the print quality by using the preview function of your publishing software enlarging it to about 300%.
Our system prepares the templates in Publisher 2007/2010 format. If you are using Publisher 2000, you will not be able to read the files. We strongly recommend that you upgrade your version. If you are a non-profit, you can get the latest version of Microsoft Office for steeply reduced prices at www.techsoup.com. Restrictions apply, but it is well worth it.
Registered users of Office 2007 can download a free update from Microsoft which will allow them to save fils in PDF files. Office 2010 and onward has this capability built-in.
Otherwise, you will need a copy of Adobe Acrobat (not the free Adobe Reader) installed on your computer. If you do, the process is usually quite straightforward. Here are some basics.
Once your files are 'ready to go', delete all background images of the generic calendar, all instruction boxes, and save the result in a new file. Name the file "Imprint999", the '999' representing your lot number.
If you are using Publisher's built-in PDF capabilities: Click on File → Save as → PDF. On the dialog box which will come up, first click on "options" (or "PDF options") and when prompted, choose the highest quality printing option on the list (usually called 'Commercial press'). Click through, choose a name/location, and save.
If you are using Acrobat:
In Quark, when choosing to export → layout as PDF, it doesn't automatically compress your images, resulting in a very large PDF file. Click on "options" before starting the save. In the window that comes up, choose "compression". For color and grayscale images, choose "Automatic Zip/JPEG Low" compression, and bicubic downsampling to 300DPI. . For monochrome images, choose "CCIT Group 4", and bicubic downsampling to 1200DPI. Click OK and create your PDF.