File Preparation: About Creating PDFs

How to Create Press-Ready PDF Files

Follow these recommendations for creating reliable and highly PostScript-compatible PDF files of your document. The follwoing procedures are applicable to both Macintosh OS and Windows:

Option A: Adobe Acrobat™ Print to Disk

STEP 1: Once your final art file is complete, select the Print to Disk option and choose the folder or disk that the PS file will be saved. If you are using a Macintosh you MUST make sure that your fonts are embedded in your PS file in order for the PDF file to be printed correctly. You do this by clicking on the Popup Button that says "General" and selecting the "Save as File" option near the bottom of the list. Make sure Font Inclusion is set to All. NOTE: We are not responsible for correcting font errors in PDF files and will notify you if they are encountered.

STEP 2: Set up your file using the Adobe Distiller printer description or a postscript printer description and a Custom Page Size at 100% of your final print size. It is very important that your file is being printed at 100%. If you are including crop and registration marks in your PDF file, make sure you leave extra space for these marks.

STEP 3: If your file contains bleeds, you MUST turn on the option for crop and registration marks and make sure the bleeds are set to at least 1/8 inch beyond the trim (final page size). Set up a custom paper size in the print dialogue box to add one inch in both directions.

STEP 4: If you are printing a black & white file, make sure your color settings are set to greyscale or B/W. If you are printing a CMYK, make sure the setting is set to Composite Color. If you are printing spot colors, you must pre-separate the file.

STEP 5: Print to disk. The PDFWriter plug-in that was automatically installed when you installed Adobe Acrobat™ will generate a PostScript version of you file with the .PS file name extension.

STEP 6: Launch Adobe Acrobat™ and open the .PS file (or double-click the .PS file). Under the File menu select "Save As" and save the file with your final file name and the .PDF extension.

Option B: Using the Acrobat Distiller™ Utility

You have an option of printing or saving to PDF in most modern applications, or if you have the PDFWriter plug-in setup as a Printer. However, the most trouble-free PDFs are created using the Acrobat Distiller™ utility software that comes with the full version of Adobe Acrobat 4.0 or later. As long as you have set up your files using the steps outlined above in Option A, you are ready for the easiest part.

STEP 1: Open Acrobat Distiller ™ by double-clicking the application icon or by selecting "Distiller" from the Tools menu in Adobe Acrobat.™ Change the print profile settings to Press Optimized.

STEP 2: Either open the .PS file that you created, or drag it on top of the Distiller window. Make sure that your computer has finished printing the .PS file to disk.

STEP 3: When the file has been converted and you have a PDF file, without log file/errors, open it up in Adobe Acrobat™ to make sure that everything looks the way you expect it to. If you printed spot colors, make sure that all of your objects have been printed in the file. If you have a missing images or missing text it might be the result of the color space being set incorrectly. Refer to STEP 4 in Option A above.

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