Your image editing or scanning software allows you to save images in a variety of file formats. It's important to know which file type suits your needs.

There are three basic types of graphics file format for printing: bitmap, vector and metafile.

BITMAP
Pictures created as rows and columns of pixels are referred to as bitmap files. Each pixel is assigned a particular colour or gray value and the combination of all the pixels make up the image. Image editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop, or the software you use to run a scanner, are common applications for creating bitmaps. Other examples of bitmap-format graphics files are TIFF (Tagged Image File Format), BMP (Windows Bitmap), MacPaint, and PCX.

VECTOR
Another common file type is a vector-based file format. These files contain mathematical instructions for drawing objects. These expressions describe shapes such as lines, ellipses, polygons, rectangles and arcs. The vector gives instructions such as "draw a line from A to B" or "this is a polygon made up of the following line segments." Examples of vector-format graphics files include the Postscript paths and the type found in an Illustrator EPS (Encapsulated Postscript) file.

METAFILE
The third popular format is called a metafile. Metafiles may contain both vector and bitmap graphics, but don't necessarily have both. Examples of metafiles include Macintosh PICT, Adobe Illustrator EPS, CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile) and WMF (Windows Metafile) formats.

For files being sent to Webcom, please make sure to use EPS for vector-based graphics and TIFF for bitmap images.