Preserved Topic: Supplying PDF's for print? (Page 1 of 1)

Heya's ive noticed with alot of printing companies are preferring PDF files to be sent to them for printing.. I honestly thought this was the last type of file i would be sending.

Is there some advantage too them, and do most publishing software today output to pdf? Also how do they know margins etc if your supplying a pdf, isnt it just a flat page?

Anyhow little confused on that one... One other question i did have, say in pagemaker you are doing business cards, how do they know where to trim etc? Is it possible to put trim lines in or something, i guess for a full page you might need to do this as well if you want bleed? Another thing im a little confused over...

Thanks for your help

well, a PDF will (should) look exactly the same, wether it's printed or displayed on a screen, or printed on a high end printer, or on a newspaper.... therefore it's a fairly popular format, especially since it's a lot easier to output than postscript. and it does contain margins.

can't help you on your second question, though.

Hmm sounds interesting, i noticed alot of companies wanting it now, and they say you can even send over email??

So all you have to do is do your page layout in pagemaker or something as you normally would, then save as PDF?

Also how can the file be so small that you can send via email, most files i had were at least 60mb since you need 300dpi.

This one has me baffled

well, for smaller print jobs, pdf can be nice and small because it embeds the fonts once, than reuses that definition througout.
But a big job (say 250 pages) will still generate a 60 mb pdf if it contains pictures. Can't send that via mail, but easily via other means.

Yeh, i guess its amazing they can make the file so much smaller tho, yet keep the same quality. They also want you to embed fonts etc... so no vector outlines are needed i guess?

PDF size rally depends on how and what you include. My PDF that I send to my printers range from 10mg to 300 meg for a single page. I Generally you don't supply multipage PDF to the printer as they will still need to do the impositon for the press and will have to brake it apart in to single pages anyway. The only time I make a Multpage PDF is if it for the electronic deliverly (ie WEB, Ebook, etc...) for a desktop printer or it is going to a digital output device like a Xerox Docucolor or Indigo digital press.

For print I use the Distiller prepress default with some minor tweeks, PDFs encoded for the web generally have images embeded as 72 dpi jpg's.

But it's all a realy matter of how many images you place, and at what resolution.

The reson the printer are starting to like PDF is:

a. the who image is in one package, so nothing to relink and it generally redues errors due to native application files.

b. There such thing as a PDF-x or certified PDF. If it's certified it should print on the rip with out problems.

c. It can redues costs as you can except PC and Mac generated files, the software that generated generally no longer need to process the file. (One exception being if the software can only produce a RGB PDF. Then they may need to do preprocessing. Some use a program called Pitstop)

Here is a link to Quad Graphic's PDF setup guides, They have several interesting guide on how to setup Distiller for proper use when supply files for offset and gravure printing. http://www.qg.com/prodserv/imaging/specs/saving.html

Here is another printer, with a few simple guides and checklist, they would make a good start. Keep in mind that all this info may not apply directly to you printer but most of the info would apply. Any printer worth using should have a similar documents.

J. Stuart J.

thanks for that, was there supposed to be another link at the end for that printer?

I've actually been looking at what product im going to use to make the pdf's, distiller was recommended, but on the adobe site i only saw adobe distiller server? The package im going to get will have inDesign and Acrobat professional 6 in it. Are they sufficient for making the pdfs?

Opps, here it is: http://www.northprint.com/cs.html

You want one of the Acrobat 6 packages, either Pro or Standard they include Acrobat Distiller 1.6 and Acrobat 6 (the editor, sometimes called Acrobat Exchange) as well as several other utilities including the reader. I think you only need Acrobat 6 pro if you wish to cenerated certified PDF-x files or some of it's other bells and wissels. But you will have to check the site for more info as I still use an older version. I think the full version on Acrobat 6 also comes witht he design pack.

You can generate PDF directly with InDesign 2 or Quark 6, so distiller realy needed if you have these packages. The Acrobat editor is only needed if you want create interactive forms, later the layout, and pages, or edit hyper links or link to video files. There are several plug-ins that make life easyer on the prepress end such as Pitstop. They require the full acrobat package as the run in the editor.

I use the copy of distiller that came with Pagemaker 7, I only needed the Distiller at this time, and as I have no need to edit the pdf or hyper links at this time. If I start getting some more freelance work, I most likly pick-up Acrobat Pro so I can run some of the acrobat plug-ins.

J. Stuart J.

Ahh ok i see now, great. Looks like if i pick up that Adobe publishing pack then ill have all the tools i need. Thanks for that stuart, looks like its time to dig deep into the pockets hehe.

H][RO: I'm assuming you picked up in jstuartj's post that there is a very important distinction between PDFs geared for the web (or desktop printers) and for the printing press. 10-300MB is nothing you would consider emailing, is it?

One of the BIG headaches a commercial printer has to deal with is a file that won't print for one reason or another. There are several pre-flight software packages that attempt to catch problems before they get to the image setter, but one of the things about PDF is - if you can save the file as a PDF, it will more than likely print. Sure there are still things that can go wrong, but it's a little less likely than a Quark or PageMaker or InDesign file that might be missing fonts or have bad links to images or any of the hundreds of things that can go wrong. Handing over a PDF file doesn't guarantee anything, but anything that helps, even a little, is worth it in a commercial setting.

Yeh, im not sure the file sizes the pdf's come out as, but i was reading a printers site that said they prefer pdfs for printing because u can send them over email, so i was expecting the pdf's to be like 5mb or something, i really wouldnt send anything bigger then 5 mb over email.

Hmm.. well i was just playing around with indesign, and exporting to pdf's, .. Its for a business card im doing, so its an A4 page with 8 cards on it. I have a background image done in photoshop which i did a place into the page, and copied it a few times, and a logo which was the same.

The psd files were about 2mb each, when i added all of the text and exported to a pdf, the file came out as 450kb!! To me that seems super small, does it still have all of the information and detail needed to print?, is it just compression that allows the file to be so small? A little curious about that =/

That's seems a little low to me for a PDF designed for print.

In indesign I assume you are using Export, and saving as an PDF.

In the PDF save dialog there are several options, from the top style selector choose either Press or Print depending on the quality you perfer. I would play it save and use Press unless you realy need to save on diskspace. Print is more for lower resolution print devices like inkjets and highend copiers like the xerox etc......

4-color Images don't realy ever compress more then about 70% unless jpeg or some other lose compression method is use which is undeisreable for printing.

One other thing concerns me. Was the logo created in Photoshop? How did you place it over the background? Did you use a PSD and use layer with transparency? If so be very careful when doing so make sure you chech the advanced options when the save PDF dialog appears and select "Transparency Flatten"--->"High Resolution" Most of the output troubles with indesige are related to transparency, so sometimes it's better to use clipping paths and save the image as an EPS for placement. Or better yet create the logo in Illustrator if you can.

A good Idea is to load the document into Acrobat Reader and Check it over, Use File-->Document Properties --> Fonts. To check and make sure you font were embeded properly according to you PDF export setting. You might also make a print out from Acrobat Reader to check that everything prints. Use "Print as Image" inorder to properly print nicely on no-postscript printers. Elements like EPS's will look look pixelated if you don't have a postscript printer and don't print as image. (Note. This is the same as illustrators "Print As Image" function.)

Make sure you read up on how to output transparency, and the section on PDF files in the InDesign manual. It's a little criptic but should help a little.

J. Stuart J.

Damn ok, i did select print instead of press, so ill check that.

For the transparancy i created a vector outline with the pen tool in photoshop on a layered psd, and yeh it had transparency =/. I wonder if its possible to bring the path straight in. When i saved the pdf it gave me a warning about transparency and said i must save as acrobat 5 pdf to maintain transparency.

I will have to read up on it, however i did open the pdf file after i made it, and printed it on my desktop printer and it looked like it came out fine as far as transparency etc is concerned. When i get home in another 3 hours ill put an image up so you can see what it is im doing and maybe clear some things up.

Thanks Stuart, ill get there one day

Hey stuart, here is a 4 page full colour brochure im working on atm

Brochure

Everything is done originally in photoshop, in a CMYK file, 420mm x 297mm, 300dpi. (Since its going to be folded in half) these are just the two middle pages as one a3 piece. Im not sure if im going about it the right way.

One thing one of my publishers documents for preparing PDF's says is that LPI should be 175lpi, Resolution should be:
For Colour and Greyscal raster images - 300dpi
For Mono raster (bitmaps) - 1200 dpi maximum.

Now what im wondering, my background etc (so the overall red swirl) was created in photoshop, but i created it at 300dpi. Is this a problem, i would have considered this a bitmap layer, so maybe i should have done it at 1200dpi?,,, Having said this when i bring the file into inDesign, i normally select the edges of it and make it fit my margins, which normally seems like im scaling it down... Is it then still 1200dpi when i export to pdf?

Thinks like that im a little confused of, and the photo's of the flywheel etc, ive scaled them down to be the right size im after in the 300dpi document. Maybe this was wrong also ...

Lastly for text, most of it ill do striaght in inDesign, but the white outlined text im not sure about, maybe you can outline in inDesign i havn't tried.

edit: One other thing i noticed was that when i went to print from inDesign, onto my desktop printer, i couldnt tell it to do CMYk, it just wanted to do RGB, is there something wrong there, or is that normal for desktop printers?

Any advice you can give would be great.. thanks


[This message has been edited by H][RO (edited 09-09-2003).]

Looks good.

I would think the background should be just fine, My only concern might be the thin teal circles and some of the finer line art. But they light and if anti-alised well they shouldn't case to much trouble at 300dpi. I don't realy see any better way to create what you have as the main Flywheel artworks falls behind some of the vignette. I would make the other ruled boxes, the ones that lay above the background in InDesign or Illustrator just to be safe.

By mono bitmaps @ @1200dpi, the printer is refering to 1-bit tiffs or linework. For instance if you created the light teal flywheel in the background as a separate item. Why would you what to you ask instead of illustrator. Well say it was a common element used on 30 pages at 30 different colors. 1-bit tiff can can be colorized in most desktop applications, saving you the hassel of have to generate 30 eps files and allow the designer more freedom.

The reason behind 1200dpi resoulution is the 1-bit tiff will rasterize at the RIP at the same resolution as vector elements and type. (In some cases better as illustrator element rasterize at 800dpi, unless adjusted.)

As for Acrobat there are 2 locations of controling resolution. The first is the General Resolution setting, think of it as printers resolution setting. A images and element will remain as you defined them unless they exceed this value. For Press it's 2400dpi, and for Print it's 1200dpi. The other control is located under compression, images will be compress and or downsized according to the rules outlined in this dialog.

I think you can do outlined type in InDesign but if you can't do it in illustrator, I would convert the font to outlines so you don't have to worry about the font.

Otherwise it looks good, watch you margins and bleeds, your are getting a bit close. Also keep in mind that with products that greyish in color so casting could occur if the press vary 5+% per primary which it will expecially with that amount of red in the background. There are things that could be done to help this but it's a little hard to explain. Perhap I will they latter, but I have to go to work now.

One design not, You might think about increasing the headline type, It seam a little small to me. The same goes for the main Clutch Assembly, if it's the main focus of the ad.

J. Stuart J.

Thanks for that stuart, thats great. - clears a few things up =)

When i bring this into indesign, do you think its best i bring all of the artwork in as one element, apart from the text. So the red background, and the photo's of flywheels etc all as one element at 300 dpi. Or am i better off bringing the background in, then placing the flywheels etc in with transparency. I guess my only worry was there is if there is any issue with transparency, and i cant really think of any reason why you wouldnt want to bring them in all as one (apart from you cant move the pictures if u need too)

I guess if i did bring the pictures in separately, i could probably do the teal circlework in indesign, as you said for the red boxes in the middle also.

>>I think you can do outlined type in InDesign but if you can't do it in illustrator, I would convert the font to outlines so you don't have to worry about the font.<<

- So i should do this for every bit of type? And will the heading "Alloy Race Components" be ok as an image, or should i make this vector also (i made a vector outline in photoshop, hopefully i can just bring that in)

Also ill take your advice on headline and assembly type, it definately does need to be bigger and bolder.

Thanks for your time stuart, i really appreciate it!

I like the idea of bring in the element in seperately. That way you can keep the squares and circles vector element in InDesign. And as you said, it would be easyer to make changes when the client request last minute changes.

Having said that, what you have done is exceptable it just makes change diffucult and there could be a minor quality loss on the circles at 300dpi. But if you did everything correctly nice and anti-alised, I doubt you will see much of a problem there.

Before InDesign and QuarkXpress Plug-ins. When you wanted to create trasparent shadows over images and/or tints, similar composites were often made. As there was no other way to create tranparancy effects.

The title will most likely be ok as an image. Make sure you are not scaleing it up or else you could run into problems with jagged edges. You might think about adding it to the composite if you are planning to persue that route of working. You may see some imporvement in it's anti-alising. The best course of action would be to create the title in Illustrator or even InDesign.

As for the rest of the type, leave it in indesign as the font. Body copy doesn't convert to outlines well and it shouldn't realy be necessary. Just embed the font when you generate the PDF. The printer may also wish you to suppy the fonts as a backup.

It's my pleasure to help, this is one of the few areas I can assist. Plus it's good pratice for me, I am scheduled to teach the Print Production Class this fall at my Advertising school. I have been working on the curriculum taking a 15 day course and turning it into a 3 day short course and am having trouble deciding on what info might intrest the student most. You questions have helped me focus on what's issues may need to be addressed.

I am hoping I can finish my website sometime soon and I will be posting training material as I create it. If you have any ideas for tutorial subjects it would be most helpful.

J. Stuart J.

Great, good to know you might make some use of this also. For me anyhow i guess as far as a course would go maybe it would be an idea going through the entire process of a peice of work. Like a brochure or something, from start to print. For me at this stage that would be an ideal course, but it depends what you are aiming to teach i guess and what people want to learn :P.

I'm actually doing a 13 week course starting next week, but i think it focuses mostly on illustrator and photoshop, hopefully it goes into some details about colour etc and how to prepare files. As far as using photoshop and illustrator goes, most people can figure out that stuff themselves, in my opinion the only reason to do a course is to see how stuff is "meant" to be done or done in practice. But it may just be me ;P

I talked to my printer today, luckily i know the person there so she can help me out with stupid stuff i do hehe. She said they were having trouble with indesign files and pdf's sometimes, so they would prefer eps files at the moment. Luckily they do proofs pretty cheap, i think $15 Aus for a A4 proof or something, so ill make sure i get them for all the jobs just to save any hassle!

Alot of the stuff you've helped me with would be great in a faq btw stuart, maybe you should make one for here that you could also use as an aid in your course.

There is lots's of good info in this thread so i added it to the :FAQ: print

__________________________________________
"Art has to be forgotten. Beauty must be realized."
Piet Mondriaan

[This message has been edited by Rinswind 2th (edited 09-12-2003).]

You might want to take a look at the thread below also "Publishing Software" thats got some good stuff in it also

done.. look at the faq

__________________________________________
"Art has to be forgotten. Beauty must be realized."
Piet Mondriaan