Best PDF export settings for print-on-demand (KDP, IngramSpark, Lulu, Blurb...)

[MikeTO]

I'm going to add some tips to the next version of my Publisher manual to help those exporting to PDF for a print-on-demand service because the sites don't provide Affinity-specific instructions. I've distilled their PDF requirements into a general list, along with a warning to always check the provider's specific requirements of course.

If you've used one of these services, could you review the export settings below and suggest any tips that might help others avoid issues? For now I'm just looking at export settings and not document setup which is more specific to the service, but please share your document setup tips for specific services, too.

Even if somebody doesn't read the manual it would be nice to have a concise list of settings in one forum thread so users don't have to sort through the many long troubleshooting threads.

I bolded the export settings that seem to be the cause of frequent errors. Please let me know of anything that isn't correct or that you would add a caveat to.

• File format: PDF
• Preset: PDF/X-1a:2003 (unless otherwise directed to use PDF/X-3:2003 or another PDF standard)
• Raster DPI: no change (300) unless otherwise directed
• Include bleed: select if the document includes bleed
• Area: select All Pages
• Rasterize: no change (Unsupported Properties) unless otherwise directed
• Downsample images: no change (selected)
• Above: no change (375)
• Resample: no change (Bilinear)
• Use Document Resolution vs. Use DPI: no change (Use DPI, 300) unless otherwise directed
• Allow JPEG Compression: no change (98)
• Compatibility: PDF/X-1a:2003 (unless otherwise directed to use PDF/X-3:2003 or another PDF standard)
• Colour Space: no change (As document)
• Profile: no change (Use document profile)
• Honour spot colours: deselect
• Overprint black: no change (selected)
• Include bookmarks: no change (deselected)
• Include printers marks: no change (deselected)
• Embed fonts: no change (selected)
• Subset fonts: no change (selected)
• Allow advanced features: no change (selected)
• Tagged PDF: no change (unselected)
• Password Protection: no change (unselected)

[stokerg]

Hi @MikeTO,

Looks like you've covered the main one I've dealt with in the past, which was the version\compatibility of PDF.

I'll check with the other guys on the Tech Team and see if they can add anything else  

[MikeTO]

@stokerg Thank you!

[Jane DK]

Hello MikeTo or anyone who is listening 🤞

First, let me say I am so grateful for this brilliant manual.

I hate to bother you, but I am not succeeding with adapting the EXPORT procedure I normally use with InDesign. I sent a test to my printer (not the machine, the person). She just says I've done it wrong and she has no advice with anything non-Adobe. I am sure my document set up correctly so I must be missing something when I export. Here are screenshots of the presets from indesign and my attempts to emulate them in Affinity (the product is a 24 page newspaper).

I know I'm asking a lot but I have tried everything I can think of.

Jane

[MikeTO]

Hi @Jane DK, you didn't report what error your printer found with the file, what their requirements are, or what's in your document, so it's tough to guess at the problem.

But in InDesign you selected Acrobat 4 PDF 1.3 while in Publisher you chose PDF/X-4. These are very different and the most similar option in Publisher would be to set Preset to PDF (for export) and Compatibility to PDF 1.4 (Acrobat 5) which is the closest available version. I find it odd that a professional printer would ask you for a PDF 1.3 file but without knowing their requirements I can't guess as to whether that was even the best choice in InDesign.

That's the big one but I'd also deselect Honour Spot Colours unless you're paying the printer to print spot colours. You might not have used any in your document but just turn it off to be safe.

Good luck!

[Hangman]

Hi @Jane DK and welcome to the forum,

A really unhelpful printer... if there is something specifically wrong with the PDF they should be able to tell you exactly what that is, the software used to create the PDF isn't that relevant here since they are processing the PDF... Personally, I'd ask them if they could let you know specifically what is wrong with the PDF provided otherwise you are slightly fishing in the dark when it comes to correcting it...

Affinity apps don't have PDF/X-1a:2001 support and so are unable to export PDF 1.3 files which may be the biggest issue...

The only other immediate difference I can see is that with the Adobe settings colour images are set to be downsampled to 200 pixels per inch when above 300 using Bicubic sampling, in the Affinity settings this is set to downsample images above 375 dpi using Bilinear sampling but I very much doubt that is the issue...

Can you confirm the Colour Profile you're using for your document under the Document Setup Colour Tab and could you perhaps provide a link to the printer's PDF specs when providing artwork so we can check a couple of things...

[lacerto]

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

A really unhelpful printer... if there is something specifically wrong with the PDF they should be able to tell you exactly what that is

I would say that asking for 1.3 is asking the least of all troubles, in good belief that the client is using page layout software that is capable of producing high-quality clean and simple print PDF using those specs. That means: a device-CMYK, non-color-managed (= no ICC dependent), transparency flattened, yet non-rasterized PDF that has ideally been produced by using a job description and color profile provided / recommended by the printshop. This is what most of the kinds of printers mentioned in the title line of this thread ask and instruct, and it is so simple when using the expected tools. The other alternative they might offer is creating an all-RGB file, produced with something like Word or Pages -- so no CMYK, and nothing fancy.

But we have seen this so many times on this forum: printer's fault, legacy technology, please move on to 2020s. The sad thing is that asking for PDF/X-4 (or PDF 2.0, which Affinity apps now have added amongst the "supported" export standards), might cause rasterization of the whole design and totally misinterpreted colors, so the supposedly most compatible and versatile export method might actually turn out to be the most incompatible, and messy.

Might one dare to ask Serif to be helpful enough to provide step by step guides for producing PDFs for these kinds of services? Or could it be that such recipe cannot be given because there are so many reasons why "the most simple possible" press-related export job can go wrong when using Affinity apps, that in practice the old-time workflow: sending in everything involved, is the only way to truly and effectively troubleshoot these jobs.

Yet it is worth a try: sometimes the fix can be very simple, and there is always someone willing to help on the forum. Just don't be afraid of kilometer-long discussions. 

[Jane DK]

Hi and thank you for 3 thoughtful and thorough replies to my Pdf problems.

It's true I didn't specify what she said was wrong - it was 4 colours in the text - not caused by incorrect pdf settings, but I didn't know that - I assumed, wrongly, that it was my pdf settings that had caused it!  I have corrected the text colours from rich black to 100k, though I don't know how I got that wrong in the first place. I could have missed something with document colour settings when I first brought the idml file into Affinity (?)

I got the InDesign pdf specs over the phone from the very same printer who talked me through it about 6 months ago - I have it on a preset so I never bothered to understand what it was about - but that's about to change

Thanks again for your advice. I will send a new test using PDF 1.4 (Acrobat 5). I will keep it at bilinear and uncheck the spot colours. Maybe she will be in a better mood tomorrow! Hey Ho !

[lacerto]

@Jane DK - I'm sorry for my somewhat frustrated words above, but I'll try to be more helpful, even if what I mention here is a bit out of topic considering the original subject.

Producing using PDF/X-1a (or PDF/X-3, and making sure that you check the Convert color spaces option) gives you the closest to the preset you have used in InDesign: essentially, these two export methods are the only way to produce automatically transparency flattened PDF within Affinity apps, which is what PDF 1.3 supported in other page layout apps will do. If this is what your printer truly requires, these two are the only options you have to automatically flatten the transparency (opacities, PNG and other images with transparent backgrounds, etc.)

The bad news is that it does not work well with the kind of job you have at hand, since a newsletter is likely to contain placed PDFs on the layout. If so, you should know that if you export using PDF/X-1a, all non-PDF/X-based PDFs (e.g. logos, ads, etc.) will be rasterized and their colors recalculated, e.g. K100 black will become four-color black -- unless you let Affinity Publisher interpret their content (in which case you should have all fonts used in these files installed on your system, and check that they are correctly mapped; and check that colors are not recalculated: they most certainly will be). You mention above that this is specifically what went wrong with your job, and this is one explanation to this. 

If you export using PDF/X-3, PDF/X-1 and PDF/X-3 based placed PDFs will not be forced to be rasterized, but will be passed through; everything else will be rasterized and colors re-interpreted. If you do not have this kind of placed content (or do not mind having it rasterized and colors changed), I suggest that you try either method, and let your printer have a comment on output. It should be technically pretty close to what they expect. It is true that most printers today accept live transparency so if you want to make your life easier with Affinity apps, you'll do yourself a favor if you look for a printshop that does not have a problem with it. Your job is a kind that allows such a switch, but those depending on low-cost on-demand book print services, might not have that freedom.

You mention that you will try PDF1.4 based method. That will not flatten the live transparency, and is also an export method that allows mixed color modes, which might be something that your printer does not want. Technically the most compatible export method would be the default, PDF (press-ready) that uses PDF 1.7. That will not rasterize any placed PDF content, but would of course not flatten live transparencies, either. [Non-PDF/X-based press exports in Affinity apps, on the other hand, will retain RGB colors in PDFs that are passed through, which is probably something else that your printer might comment...]

[Jane DK]

@lacerto - no apologies necessary for such a mine of wisdom! Anyway, frustration goes with the territory and speaking for myself, it is part of what inspires and fuels me to learn more!

if you can comment on these questions, I should be good for now.

1. Rich black and rgb anywhere in the document (text, frames, placed pdfs, linked jpegs etc). All the blacks must be 100k. I have done a thorough inspection through pre-flight and I am sure there is nothing in the afpub doc that will let me down - unless I choose a pdf that converts stuff to rgb or (even worse) 4-colour black. (Q: Is there any way I can discover this in the PDF after export?)

2. Rasterising This is newspaper print quality and in earlier editions, it looks like everything (logos, ruled lines etc.) is rasterised. So I will not worry about that.

3. Transparency, live transparency and flattening Must be important but I don't know much about it in the context of exporting for print. It looked transparent in the Export window (screenshot) and I saw no options relating to transparency or flattening so I'm guessing it must be implied in the pdf file settings. Can you tell me if I need to worry about getting it right? I mean - what might the print look like if I get it wrong?

I have a deadline, monday morning - so right now I will be content if I can tick the most important boxes of things to avoid. Deeper understanding will have to wait. I was told that some of the settings required are only to avoid the pdf being too big so I will try to focus on getting it right first and keeping it small second.

Thanks so much

page14_PDF-pdf-pressready.pdf

[mopperle]

Just to add my 2 cents: I'm mainly using Blurb and Whitewall. Both are providing some help on creating PDFs for their services:
 

Blurb:
A good starting point is this page: https://support.blurb.com/hc/en-us/articles/360044955872-Affinity-Publisher-PDF-Dateien

For Whitewall:
Starting point: https://service.whitewall.com/hc/en-us/articles/4411250880273-01-Advantages-of-the-PDF-upload
When you start at this page https://www.whitewall.com/uk/coffee-table-book creating a book, you will get .idml template files for the content and the cover.

[lacerto]

 

2 hours ago, Jane DK said:

Anyway, frustration goes with the territory and speaking for myself, it is part of what inspires and fuels me to learn more!

😃

2 hours ago, Jane DK said:

Q: Is there any way I can discover this in the PDF after export?

If you do not have e.g. Adobe Acrobat or another tool that lets you view separations (e.g., browse through the pages while having CMY enabled and K hidden, to expose text where CMY inks are applied), you can always open the document in Affinity Publisher and check (e.g. use formatting in search to look for specific font color). If you have Photo, you could visit Pixel Persona and use the Channel panel for this purpose.

Note that if you experience conversion of K100 text to four-color text, these parts might also be rasterized, since violation of Affinity PDF compatibility rule basically always means that these parts will be rasterized. If  you are going to use transparency flattening (PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-3), please notice that Affinity apps always flatten transparencies by rasterizing, so some part of text might become rasterized and four-color because of that, too.

2 hours ago, Jane DK said:

This is newspaper print quality and in earlier editions, it looks like everything (logos, ruled lines etc.) is rasterised. So I will not worry about that.

Fine. As long as document DPI is high enough (300dpi is probably just fine, considering the medium), it is basically irrelevant at which point things get rasterized. If the newsletter will be in digital format, as well, exporting with different PDF method would keep these parts non-rasterized.

2 hours ago, Jane DK said:

saw no options relating to transparency or flattening so I'm guessing it must be implied in the pdf file settings

It is not an explicit option anywhere, so you get it in Affinity apps only if you use PDF/X-1a or PDF/X-3 standards, which have in their specs that live transparency is not allowed. It is possible to have transparency flattening as an in-app feature, but this is not so far supported in Affinity apps. Affinity apps do not support exporting using PDF 1.3 version, which would allow transparency flattening without using PDF/X standards (if that is something that is not wanted), and which would also allow flattening of transparencies in RGB exports (which would require also an option that lets the user to choose transparency blend color mode).

You can do some transparency flattening manually, too, e.g. flatten images with a transparent background when this feature is not needed, using an image editor. It is possible to rasterize objects also on canvas but that often leaves artifacts. Using Boolean operations and Designer Persona and tools like Shape Builder you can also manually try to separate transparent parts and make certain areas solid color, but this is pretty cumbersome so probably not worth an effort.  

[lacerto]

Here is basic visual preflight that you can do in apps like Adobe Acrobat Pro that can show separations and check use of transparency, overprint and rich black, and total ink coverage. 

 You mention newsprint so I wonder if the default CMYK profile you are currently using (U.S. Web Coated v2), which allows up to 300% total ink usage, is appropriate, or if your printer can recommend something with lesser maximum ink usage? 

Related to this, please note that if another CMYK profile is recommended, you cannot simply just switch the profile at export time, since Affinity apps do not allow "keeping the color numbers", but instead will recalculate all CMYK definitions, which would result in K100 blacks being converted to rich black. So if you need to change the profile, use File > Document Setup, and Color tab, and when switching the CMYK profile, make sure that you use the "Assign" option if you just want to change the profile without causing change of color values (this would keep you K100 text as K100) -- or, if you want to have Affinity Publisher to translate all CMYK colors for lesser ink coverage, use the "Convert" option, which would cause K100 to become rich black, which you then need to change back to K100 using e.g. Search and FInd, optimally combined with text style definitions. 

 

 

[Jane DK]

@lacertothis is brilliant! Thanks for everything 

 

[Jane DK]

@mopperle Following the links you sent. Thank you - good intelligence

 

[lacerto]

48 minutes ago, mopperle said:

Just to add my 2 cents: I'm mainly using Blurb and Whitewall. Both are providing some help on creating PDFs for their services:
 

Thanks for posting!

There is one point worth noting mentioned in Blurb instructions:

Quote

Blurb does not review your file before it goes to print. The content and layout of your book is entirely up to you.

Some service providers, on the other hand, might use (overly) strict preflight routines that discard a delivered print job for reasons that seem trivial. But they often are not, considering what the print personnel in such services really can do.

Many on-demand-printers targeted for general public e.g. might simply just strip any color management included and if there are transparencies, might flatten them with whatever tool is available for them. Such operations might leave visible stripes or color changes between adjacent (flattened and non-flattened) color areas, which would then become as nasty surprises in printed product if not noticed when checking the drafts (if even available).

Noting users of possible issues as regards use of live transparency, mixed color mode, etc., and recommending "legacy" press standards, are often kinds of safety measures and warnings and recommendations, and they are often given assuming that users have easy ways of applying these changes (i.e., that they do the layout with e.g. InDesign, QuarkXPress, etc.). There is typically no press-specific information available for Affinity apps, and it cannot be assumed that printshops have trained personnel knowledgeable enough to know about specific limitations and workarounds of Affinity apps to give step-by-step instructions for their customers (especially as press-specific development is going on).  

[mopperle]

@lacerto I've just uploaded a book to Blurb and they make indeed a preflight check after uploading, checking the files for technical errors. Additionally they create a preview pdf, where you once more have the chance to check your book, especially to make sure that all content is within the printable areas.

So the warning you where referring to, is about the content (text, pictures, layout) only. They do of course no spell checking, or look for an ugly layout or poor picture quality.

[lacerto]

4 hours ago, mopperle said:

So the warning you where referring to, is about the content (text, pictures, layout) only.

Ok, good to know. The document referred did not specify any clear press-specific specs, nor did it accordingly give any instructions on how to meet such specs when producing with Affinity Publisher, so therefore I assumed that they do not have any strict requirements e.g. as for live transparency or color mode, color profile, or PDF production method.

[benged123]

On 1/27/2024 at 11:20 AM, MikeTO said:

• File format: PDF
• Preset: PDF/X-1a:2003 (unless otherwise directed to use PDF/X-3:2003 or another PDF standard)
• Raster DPI: no change (300) unless otherwise directed
• Include bleed: select if the document includes bleed
• Area: select All Pages
• Rasterize: no change (Unsupported Properties) unless otherwise directed
• Downsample images: no change (selected)
• Above: no change (375)
• Resample: no change (Bilinear)
• Use Document Resolution vs. Use DPI: no change (Use DPI, 300) unless otherwise directed
• Allow JPEG Compression: no change (98)
• Compatibility: PDF/X-1a:2003 (unless otherwise directed to use PDF/X-3:2003 or another PDF standard)
• Colour Space: no change (As document)
• Profile: no change (Use document profile)
• Honour spot colours: deselect
• Overprint black: no change (selected)
• Include bookmarks: no change (deselected)
• Include printers marks: no change (deselected)
• Embed fonts: no change (selected)
• Subset fonts: no change (selected)
• Allow advanced features: no change (selected)
• Tagged PDF: no change (unselected)
• Password Protection: no change (unselected)

Just want to thank you Mike, for this. I was asking in a different post for exactly this ... dumb me ... not remembering you had already responded in an earlier post. I've used exactly this and am finally sending the document to LuLu.com. I'll report back if they have anything to say that doesn't dovetail with your recommendations above.

And thank you again!!

[Stephanie Hofmann]

Hi, Mike,

thanks for your post, that is really helpful! I am setting up some book covers for print with Acrobat for KDP and am confused about what to put in the color conversion field, do I put no conversion or convert to destination and then select generic CMYK which is how I set up the document and do I include destination profile in box underneath or select don't include profile? Thank you so much, Steffi

[MikeTO]

6 hours ago, Stephanie Hofmann said:

thanks for your post, that is really helpful! I am setting up some book covers for print with Acrobat for KDP and am confused about what to put in the color conversion field, do I put no conversion or convert to destination and then select generic CMYK which is how I set up the document and do I include destination profile in box underneath or select don't include profile? Thank you so much, Steffi

Hi @Stephanie Hofmann and welcome to the forums.

Generic CMYK should be good as the document's colour profile. When exporting, choose "As Document" from the "Colour Space" list and "Use Document Profile" from the Document Profile list. There is no "Convert to Destination" option, that's an Adobe term.

I didn't provide explicit instructions for book covers but keep in mind that if you don't have a calibrated monitor (a very expensive monitor used by professionals), the colours on your screen will appear more vivid than how they will be printed by KDP leading to a cover that appears washed out. Choosing a glossy cover instead of matte will help the colours pop a bit more. Others here may be able to provide better tips based on their experience.

Good luck!