Exporting a publication that has been created in black & white

[Peter Williams]

Hello, 

forgive me if I'm raising this subject in the wrong forum, but I found it challenging to find the correct one.

This issue has bothered me for a while. If I'm creating a document specifically for publication in print form and it's in colour, I absolutely understand that it must be set up in CMYK, and exported to PDF also in CMYK. But what is the absolute correct setting when exporting a document intended for print that is in black & white. I have one printing company that I use that says it too should be exported in CMYK, and another that says it should be exported in greyscale. Admittedly, when I've chosen the advice of the former, the finished result (physical copy) is that there is not a rich black appearance; rather it comes out more on the 'brown' side. And exporting in greyscale has produced a better result.

But now I'm confused, because in Affinity 2, when I hgo to set up a new document in greyscale and try to export it, I'm getting the pre-flight warning of 'Document colour profile not suitable for PDF/X'. This is suggesting to me that it's not correct to have even set up the document in greyscale.

I'm really hoping to resolve this issue that seems to be so divided. For Black & White publications what is the best setting recommended in colour profile for both:

1. Document set up

2. Exporting to PDF

Thank you in advance,

Peter

[NathanC]

Hey @Peter Williams,

12 hours ago, Peter Williams said:

forgive me if I'm raising this subject in the wrong forum, but I found it challenging to find the correct one.

I've moved this thread over to Desktop questions as this is the more appropriate section of the forums. 🙂

12 hours ago, Peter Williams said:

But now I'm confused, because in Affinity 2, when I hgo to set up a new document in greyscale and try to export it, I'm getting the pre-flight warning of 'Document colour profile not suitable for PDF/X'. This is suggesting to me that it's not correct to have even set up the document in greyscale.

Just some clarity on this warning, the default preflight profile used by the app assumes an export to a PDF/X format which has certain restrictions surrounding colour profiles, transparency etc. If an export to PDF/X compatible format is not required than these preflight warnings can be ignored, or you could create a custom Preflight profile and turn off the Warning in the profile settings, the setting is called 'PDF/X ICC Profile Check'.

https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/pages/Publishing/preflight.html

https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/pages/Panels/preflightPanel.html

I'm not too sure on specific recommendations for document setup, but perhaps another forum member may have some insight.

[Peter Williams]

Hello Nathan, thanks for that. I absolutely understand I can bypass the pre-flight warning, especially if I'm exporting digitally, but this warning has me specifically concerned for PDF printing. That's why I need clarification on settings for exporting B&W documents for printing.

[lacerto]

Please post some further information on the document you have and what the printshop requires.

I wrote lengthy instructions for diverse cases but accidentally lost the text  before sending it, and do not want to re-create the post. The instructions depend on whether what you now have is in CMYK/8 color mode (and you have color photos in the job, and/or native shapes and other elements defined in color), or Gray/8 color mode, and whether what you need to output must be in CMYK or Grayscale mode, and whether the printer requires a transparency flattened PDF (or possibly a PDF/X based PDF).