Exporting a document or book to Adobe® PDF is as simple as using the default High Quality Print settings or as customized as you need it to be to suit your task. The PDF export settings you specify are saved with the application and are applied to every new Adobe InDesign® document or book you export to PDF until you change them again. To quickly apply custom settings to PDF files, you can use presets.
You can export a document, a book, or selected documents in a book as a single PDF file. You can also copy content from your InDesign layout to the clipboard and automatically create an Adobe PDF file of that content. (This is useful for pasting a PDF file into another application, such as Adobe Illustrator®.)
When you export an InDesign file to PDF, you can preserve navigation elements, such as table of contents and index entries, and interactivity features, such as hyperlinks, bookmarks, media clips, and buttons. You also have the option of exporting hidden layers, nonprinting layers, and nonprinting objects to PDF. If you're exporting a book, you can merge identically named layers by using the Book panel.
- Export an open document to PDF
- Prepare layers before exporting an InDesign book to PDF
- Exporting an InDesign book to PDF
Export an open document to PDF
- Choose File > Export.
- Specify a name and location for the file.
- For Save As Type (Windows®) or Format (Mac OS), choose Adobe PDF, and then click Save.
- Do one of the following:
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To use a predefined set of job options, choose a preset from the Adobe PDF Preset menu.
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To create a PDF/X file, either select a PDF/X preset from the Adobe PDF Preset menu, or select a predefined PDF/X format from the Standard menu.
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To customize options, select a category from the list on the left and then set the options.
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- For Compatibility, choose the lowest PDF version necessary to open the files you create.
- Click Export (Windows) or Save (Mac OS).
- To help ensure accessibility, select Create Tagged PDF in the options section of the Export to PDF dialog box.
Prepare layers before exporting an InDesign book to PDF
When you export a book to PDF, you can show and hide InDesign layers in the PDF document. To avoid duplication of layer names in the PDF file, you can merge the layers on export.
If the Merge Identically Named Layers On Export option is selected, layer names appear under the same book name in Adobe Acrobat® or Reader® software. If this option is not selected, layer names appear separately under each document name.
- If you don't want certain layers to be merged, give them unique names in each book document.
Note: Layer names are case-sensitive, so "Art" and "art" layers are not merged. - In the Book panel menu, select Merge Identically Named Layers On Export. Note: When you export the book to PDF, make sure that Create Acrobat Layers is selected. To select this option, you must use Acrobat 6.0 (PDF 1.5) or later.
Exporting an InDesign book to PDF
- Do one of the following:
- To create a PDF file of the entire book, click in a blank area of the Book panel to deselect any selected documents, and choose Export Book To PDF in the Book panel menu.
- To create a PDF file of documents within a book, select the document or documents in the Book panel, and choose Export Selected Documents To PDF in the Book panel menu.
- Specify a name and location for the PDF file, and then click Save.
- Either choose a preset from the Adobe PDF Preset menu, or select a category from the list on the left of the Export Adobe PDF dialog box, and then customize the options.
- Click Export (Windows) or Save (Mac OS).
