Robert Williams Posted March 8, 2020 Posted March 8, 2020 I'm creating a children's picture book in Affinity Publisher. Based on this forum's helpful advice (my thanks again), I specified the bleed dimension for the interior pages in the Document Setting dialogue and created the design as spreads, and this has worked well. HOWEVER, when I export the resulting file as a PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-3, the Export box will NOT allow me to specify "Include bleed" along with that PDF spec. I can only check Include bleed if I export to "PDF (press-ready)". BUT my book publisher (IngramSpark) demands a "press-ready" PDF of either PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-3, NOT a generic "press-ready" PDF. My impression is that nearly every printer/publisher requires some flavor of PDF/X. I've found a workaround through Acrobat Pro, but that shouldn't be necessary. Am I missing something? What's going on here? Why can't I include bleed with a PDF/X? Quote
Fixx Posted March 8, 2020 Posted March 8, 2020 I would think that if you select PDF-X and then add tick to "include bleed" it will still be valid PDF-X. Just the preset name disappears. Quote
Robert Williams Posted March 8, 2020 Author Posted March 8, 2020 The "disappearing preset" seems counter-intuitive, though, and counter-productive. Test PDFs made this way and then opened in Acrobat Pro do not verify in Acrobat's Preflight tools as PDF/X-3 compliant, at least for me. I've also made test PDFs with the PDF/X preset intact and the "include bleed" box unchecked, by necessity, and the resulting PDFs do not in fact include the bleed areas, so they are useless for printing pages that have to bleed. My workaround has been to create PDFs with the "Include bleed" box checked and no PDF preset at all, and then converting the resulting generic PDF in Acrobat Pro to be PDF/X-3 compliant. This seems to work and the Preflight will then verify the PDF as X-3 compliant, but I don't see why we should have to go clear around the barn through (and pay for) Acrobat Pro, when Affinity Publisher should itself be able to make a compliant PDF that includes bleed. I'm baffled. Quote
Fixx Posted March 9, 2020 Posted March 9, 2020 I did a test document with and without bleed and both versions show in Acrobat "PDF/X version "PDF/X-3:2003"". Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.