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Hello, I’m trying to prepare a file on Publisher for Ingram Spark and something bizarre is happening with the color space. I create a document in Grayscale (text colour set to Gray 0), yet when I try to export, the Preflight checker objects and says that the “document color profile is not suitable for PDF/X”. Now, Ingram absolutely requires their book text in Grayscale, and exported as PDF/X-1a:2001 or PDF/X-3:2002 (apparently PDF/X-1a:2003 or PDF/X-3:2003 should also work), so I forge ahead and export it as a PDF/X anyway. However, when I reopen the PDF as Grayscale in Affinity, the book text is now Gray 5. When I reopen it without specifying to open as Grayscale, it opens as CMYK, and the black of the body text is all over the shop! C72, M67,Y67, K86. So what is going on? Please note I’ve had to learn this software rather swiftly and haphazardly, with no prior knowledge of anything digital/graphics related. I work in ink and dip pen, usually, so pardon any obvious idiocy I’m committing here. On Ingram’s very helpful File Creation Guide, they note: “SPOT COLORS/ICC PROFILES: Please do not include Spot colors or ICC profiles in your file as these can produce unexpected results during processing. ICC profiles applied to 100% black text often convert to a shade or percentage of gray (less than 100% black). This will result in text in your proof that is not solid black. If text is intended to appear as solid black, including Spot colors or ICC profiles can cause delays in receiving a correct proof.” So this could be the problem. But in the export settings, the option to set the colour space or ICC profile is blank, and the box for “Embed ICC profile” is already ticked and grayed out, so I can’t alter it. I bodged up a quick file to show as an example, here: My text very much needs to be 100% solid black, so any advice would be greatly appreciated! I've searched the forum for anything Ingram Spark related, and have found some very helpful threads, but nothing dealing with this issue, yet. It might be a bug? I also have a related question about this bit of their specifications: “Resolution: 600 ppi for 1-bit black & white line art / 300 ppi for 8-bit grayscale continuous tone images” Color Space: Grayscale LPI (lines per inch): 175 visual (Where do I set this?) Preferred file format: PDF (.pdf) PDF producer: PDF/X-1a:2001 or PDF/X-3:2002” I presume by ppi they mean DPI also, so for a book containing both text AND black ink drawings, do I set the document up at 600 DPI?? And then untick the “Downsample images” box during export? Sorry for so much floundering! Cheers for any help! Valliard

IngramSpark requires print-ready PDFs be exported at 300 PPI. But IngramSpark's guide also says images of 72 PPI are acceptable! To me, this is confusing. If the export is at 300 PPI, shouldn't all images be 300 PPI too?

I am preparing a print book with color images for IngramSpark using Affinity Publisher. I must be absolutely certain that images in the PDF I submit to IngramSpark are CMYK. How can I confirm this for sure? If I open the PDF in AP using "DPI: Estimate" and "Color space: Estimate" and then check image properties with the Resource Manager, does this show the color space of the image in the PDF correctly? My concern is that opening the PDF in AP may change the image color space to a default preference.