I've been trying to export a flattened PDF of a book cover for print. The printer will only accept a flattened PDF, no other format, with a minimum of 300 dpi, but I note from another thread that people don't seem to agree what flattened means from one app to the next.
A previous cover was designed in another app (Graphic), exported it at 600 dpi, and ended up as a 5MB file. The next cover started life in Graphic but I moved it to Designer a week or so ago to polish it up. So far, so good, but then I hit a wall made either of my own ignorance or some difference between apps: when I exported to PDF, the highest dpi I could select was 400, and the file ended up at 1.2MB. Flattening at 400 dpi came out at 1.4MB. The PDF print preset (300dpi) came out at 853KB. At that point I lost my bottle and ended up playing safe (as I saw it) by exporting the AD file to JPG and then converting the JPG to a 600 dpi PDF in Graphic, which gave me a reassuringly hefty 4.5MB file.
I saw a workaround for flattening in another thread that involved grouping the layers in AD but I can't find grouping in the context menu. (I know that sounds lame, but I struggle to see the menus as it is because of the tiny low contrast font that can't be enlarged.) I'm not even sure that flattening is the issue here.
For all I know, the printer may well get back to me and tell me the bodged version that I converted via Graphic is fine, in which case I have a clunky but practical solution. But I'd welcome any observations.
As you've probably guessed, I'm not a graphics designer by trade. I'm normally at the briefing/commissioning end of the process, but this time, needs must.