A print-ready PDF isn’t just about opening without errors. It must also hold up the document’s intended size and shape. The quality of images and text, the fonts, the color, and other critical features must all be protected and not lost. This eliminates the guesswork from the printer’s work processes and keeps the final output looking and working as planned. Export presets may automate the process, but the choices made in those presets need to make sense for the layout and be adjusted to the job specifications before finalizing the file.
Don’t wait for the print to fix your layout. Before exporting to a PDF, look over your source document to see if there are any issues to be addressed: trim size, landscape or portrait format, bleed, safe margins, fold lines, and more. Confirm that full bleed backgrounds or other artwork extends beyond the trim size where appropriate, and that text, images, and other vital objects stay safely inside the trim size. Confirm the effective resolution and quality of images; just knowing the original pixel size of an image isn’t enough. A cleaner PDF isn’t a fix for images that are missing or blurred due to enlargement or compression.
Confirm that the document’s fonts are handled appropriately. The PDF should generally have its fonts embedded within the PDF to ensure that the document retains its font look and feel, no matter what computer opens the document. While some workflows will opt to outline fonts, outlining a font can make future edits difficult, especially where kerning or other type specific design details are present. Check the printer’s guidelines to confirm what they prefer for fonts. Finally, take a closer look at the finer points of text like kerning and spacing, hairlines or very fine strokes, and special characters.
Confirm that the document’s color settings are what the document needs. Some layouts may need to be converted from RGB or a CMYK color space for printing, and some workflows may allow the printer to do this conversion. Conversion may or may not be done at the time of PDF export, and may occur in the printing process itself. Converting the color at random may lead to surprising changes, especially in saturated colors, dark photographs, or deep blacks. If a specific CMYK color profile is requested, try to use that profile and avoid converting from one profile to another multiple times, as the colors can be changed in ways not intended with each conversion.
Export two or three test PDFs from the same, simple flyer. Use the same page size and bleed, but change the downsampling and compression options in the PDF export settings. Open each PDF, then compare how they look when viewed at full-screen with each other. Look over the images in each file to see if any pixels have become blocky and the gradients appear banded. Look at smaller type, thin hairlines, or vector graphics. Look at the file size to get an idea of which PDF will work for the printer. Each PDF will look just slightly different than the others, and seeing the differences side by side will help in understanding what the settings in a preset will actually do for your documents.
Production marks are another feature that must be chosen for each document. Crop marks aren’t necessary on documents being printed by all printers; some production workflows will include their own crop marks. Including registration marks, color bars, fold lines, panel information, and page labels are all things the printer can request to make the production process as simple as possible. However, using more of these than requested will only add unnecessary size to the document. Ask the printer if they want to see production marks and use what they ask for. Bleed marks, crop marks, and production marks do different things; including one doesn’t replace any of the others.
After the document is exported, check it once more. Look at the page size, number of pages, and how bleed and production marks are set up. Make sure images appear to be at the expected quality. Inspect font appearance for proper rendering. Confirm that the document is color ready for the printing process, and check that the fold and panel order is correct. Zoom in on the document to see details, but then return the document to a normal size view to make sure things look and work as expected. A clean print ready PDF doesn’t depend on a specific export setting or a small file size. The best print ready PDFs are the ones that clearly have their design and production intent defined.