Make the perfect PDF for your needs

Making a PDF from your InDesign document can be a great way to either share your project digitally or print it.

Maybe you want to upload it to an online print service without having to send a native InDesign document and everything that goes with it.

Now for this project you will explore the options but ultimately create a PDF that is meant to be printed.

Before making a PDF from any document, you want to make sure there are no issues with the document.

Fortunately, when you export as a PDF, InDesign will automatically check a few things for you, but I tend to run through and check images to see if they're missing or modified.

Check the fonts to see if any are missing.

Check for Overset text using the Preflight option down here, which is on by default.

Now, if there are any issues, you will see red, no issues and you'll see green.

Click the arrow to the right and first make sure it's turned on.

Then you can open the Preflight Panel here.

You can see the one error is Overset text.

If you open this up and then click the page number, it'll show you what page it's on and select it.

You can then double click the bottom handle here to fix it.

Also, do a quick spell check on the document by choosing Edit, Spelling, Check Spelling...

You can do that.

It's kind of embarrassing having a misspelled word in a headline, for instance.

So if you choose the right spelling like this, and click to Change it, you can then click Done.

Now you're ready to make a PDF, so choose File, Export...

Now there are two main types of PDF's you can make.

You can make a PDF for viewing digitally or a PDF for printing.

Now if your PDF contains interactive content like links or buttons that you want to keep and it's meant for onscreen viewing, you'll most likely choose the interactive version of PDF.

If you plan on sending your PDF to someone else to view or print, or maybe you want to upload it to an online printing service for instance.

Choose the print version of PDF.

For this exercise, choose Print.

Now in the dialog box that opens, you can start by choosing a default preset.

Presets are groups of saved settings.

They're meant to make it easier for you to make the right type of PDF.

Depending on what you're doing with it.

High Quality print is chosen if you're printing on your desktop printer or a proofing device.

The PDF/X options here are best chosen when you're sending the PDF to a print vendor.

If possible, check with them to see which PDF/X version.

Now the lowest common denominator for commercial printing is typically PDF/X-1a.

Press Quality is typically chosen when creating a PDF meant for high quality prepress printing.

Smallest File Size you want to choose when you plan on emailing the PDF, or you want to view it on screen.

Choose High Quality Print, so you can print it on your desktop printer.

Now, with the preset chosen, you can further customize the options over here on the left.

So let's explore the most widely used.

With the General category chosen you can specify which Pages to export.

You can also say whether they should be single Pages or Spreads.

So if you've got two pages next to each other in InDesign, kind of like a magazine or a brochure for instance, they'll appear next to each other in the PDF.

The compression settings on the left are for specifying if artwork should be compressed and down sampled.

Now, depending on the type of preset you chose these are usually fine as is.

If you find your PDF is too big in file size, you can try adjusting the resolution of the images.

The lower the resolution is the smaller the file, but the images may not look as good.

Or the Quality here, Maximum makes them look their best, but it may be a larger file size.

Now for Marks and Bleeds, this category is for specifying printers' marks like a bleed area, which is usually 3 mm or 0.125 inches.

Turning the option on here, you come down here to set the size of the Bleed Area, or you could turn on Use Document Bleed Settings if you already set a bleed in the document.

The bleed area is actually included in the PDF file, if you turn this on.

Crop Marks for indicating where to cut the page size from a larger sheet maybe, or even Registration Marks so that they can line up the different colors when they're printing on a press, for instance.

Output controls how colors are converted or preserved based on your choices and any color management settings set.

If you don't work with color management or do anything like that, I would probably leave these alone, depending on the preset you chose.

But you can do this, click Ink Manager... and you can see any spot colors or Pantone colors that may be used in the document when you're not printing with Pantone inks.

You can click All Spots to Process to make sure they all print as CMYK.

And then close it.

Now Security lets you add security to the PDF file, like a password to open it or a password to edit it.

Really good when you want to send it to somebody in and security is more of an issue.

And when you're finished, you can actually save your settings by clicking Save Preset...

You can give them a name, so you remember it next time.

The next time you make a PDF, you can choose that preset again up here.

To make the PDF, click Export.

At this point InDesign will check your document like I told you earlier.

If there are any issues like Overset text, missing fonts, missing or updated images warning dialogs will appear telling you that you need to fix them first.

So there you have it, by choosing the right options you can create the perfect PDF for your needs.