Help!! Document contains artwork that requires flattening

[tazydevil6]

Hi all, I am a VERY new Illustrator user. I am trying to learn the software while creating a business card that I need, albeit its a bit frustrating LOL. I used to do my business cards using another program but I am going to be sending it to a Printer this time, as a few people want me to do business cards for them. I downloaded a template with the dimensions I need off an online printing service, but found a printer nearby that I can take it to, but I am still using the template. I had card that I practiced on, that when I printed it came up with three warnings. From what I have read elsewhere, they happened quite a lot, so I dont feel too bad LOL. I redid the card taking things step by step again, and kept checking for printing warnings so I could figure out where it went wrong. The background and text are fine. I then did a brushstroke on the side and it said that "document contains artwork that requires flattening" so I went to OBJECT, FLATTEN TRANSPERANCY and then the warning left.....whew!!! one down. Then I added a bag that I drew with lines and rectangles etc...fine...then I did WARP INFLATE, and STYLIZE, DROP SHADOW. Then got the message "Document contains artwork that requires flattening". When I try to flatten the artwork a big white box appears behind the bag. I also used high resolution which I "think" I have to?.... I think I understand that it has something to do with Overprinting, but I am not sure what to do next.

The Printer will accept Illustrator files...not sure if they do .ai or .eps, but I assume if they accept Illustrator files it wouldnt matter. I am wondering then if I NEED to flatten it...but then it depends on what process they use I guess....if they just laser print them, maybe not. I would however, like to know how to fix this problem just in case I am faced with this in the future.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Love Robyn

[Disjuku]

When you flatten transperance the program is removing all transparent areas of the file - in this case it sounds like it is rasterizing the image with a white background. The best way to go around this is to select everything and flatten transperancy.

Doing this will rasterize everything, so the white box will no longer block out what is behind it.

I don't quite get why they would need you to flatten the transperancy on the image - if you save it as an AI then the only real problem they should run into is missing fonts.

I would send it to them as an .ai as this would save all information for them without doing anything funny to the file. If they can't seem to manage the AI file, then save it as a PDF - every printer should be able to handle a PDF.